Black arts leaders from across the state of North Carolina came together as an organizing cohort in March and April of this year to co-create a new, annual, three-day “revival” for renewal in community building; a revival after isolation. The Black Creatives Revival (BCR) aims to centralize Black artists and art leaders from around the state of North Carolina to connect, build community, centralize Black power, strengthen our arts communities, and collectively reflect the inequities of the arts.
The revival will accomplish this through resource and skill sharing, identifying expertise, fostering mentoring relationships, and gathering shared language around equity in the arts, as well as building a space for healing. Central to all of the elements of the revival are radical thought, artistic expression, art activism, critical conversations, and making commitments to consistently return to one another.
316 Lees Chapel Rd, Greensboro, NC 27455 Join us for a socially distanced gathering to meet and network with fellow artists and creatives, facilitated by Jordan BookerMedley, Jordan T. Robinson, Karen Archia & April Parker Refreshments will be served.
Zoom: bit.ly/BCRFriday; password: BlackPower Art to feed the soul and spark our conversations, facilitated by Jordan Booker-Medley Short-film screening and facilitated conversation with the artist and filmmaker, Monet Marshall www.monetnoellemarshall.com/prophesy-shortfilm 10-minute music break: Debbie the Artist www.soundcloud.com/debbie-long-4 Artist talk with Karen Archia of Public Art Practice www.karenarchia.com 10-minute music break: Debbie the Artist
Zoom: bit.ly/BCRSaturday; password: BlackPower Power Mapping, facilitated by April Parker and Antoine Williams - attendees will utilize digital tools to participate in the real-time powermapping of individuals and institutions across the state, to be called into supporting this work. Show & Tell - all attendees are invited to upload examples of their work and inspiration to share. Storytelling with the NC Artists for Black Liberation (ncblackliberation.com/) – Learn about the organization's foundations and their call for change in arts organizations across the state
NW corner of Arlington St. and E. Bragg St.
Dialogue and collaborative art-making as our collective response to the Black Lives Matter movement, facilitated by J. Andrew Speas & Jordan Booker-Medley
Saturday May 1, 9:30a-12:30p – Bring your wheels – bike, trike, or skate – and come to ride the new section of the Downtown Greenway. Check-in at the Greenway tent at the corner of Murrow & Gate City Blvd. Stop at tents along the way for bike safety info, free giveaways, and kids activities, and eat at participating businesses. Map of Downtown Greenway and participating organizations will be given out at the Greenway tent. Saturday May 1, 7:30p-8:30p (Virtual) https://www.facebook.com/scrapplenet Scrapmettle Theater debuts their new work, "Distanced," on Facebook Live. This is their first performance with the community since the onslaught of the virus that held the people of the world at a distance. Their team of writers, actors, and directors, took this opportunity to examine the theater-making experience under the microscope where Covid-19 touches us and helps us look at ourselves at a distance. More info at scrapmettle.net/next-up/distanced2021
Wednesday May 5, 6p – Babe City Rollout Weekly Meet-Up for all Babes on bikes, rollerskates, strollers, wheels, and walking! Catch us outside, join us at the corner of Arlington & Bragg Street at the Black Lunch Tables. A Gathering led by badass Black womXn, and femmes Saturday May 16, 1:30p-3:30p Invisible Institution Presents: Sunday Sermon Series
An outdoor cherch experience. Weekly we will host the community and a keynote (unannounced) will deliver a word. We hope to sankofa the experience of the black church as its origins began outdoors in many cases, during enslavement, making it the Invisible Institution. We hope to create a spiritual space, rooted in black joy and inclusivity. Mask required. Feel free to bring instruments, blankets or chairs. Come as you are and join us: Starting May 16, 2021 & Every Sunday through Black August | 1:30-3:30pm Corner of Bragg St & Arlington Ave Site of the Porch Project: Black Lunch Table. Sponsored by Elsewhere Museum
Karen Archia is a Greensboro-based visual artist and current Artist-in-Residence at The Center for Visual Artists (CVA). Karen works mostly with Sumi ink, a jet black ink made from charcoal and water, and a wide range of colored acrylic inks. You will see recurrent visual themes of a strong black line in her work, intuitive gestures, and references to familiar forms. She balances chaos and order to express a sense of dynamic movement and believes strongly in the versatility of black. Karen is Creative Director/Founder of a community-based project called Public Art Practice (PAP), which seeks to liberate, encourage and affirm the creative spirit in all people. Follow Karen on Instagram @scrappyunicorn or contact her at publicartpractice@gmail.com
Jordan Booker-Medley is the current Engagement and Relations services manager at The Arts Council of Winston-Salem & Forsyth County. Mr. Medley works on the Partner Relations and Services team where he helps to manage the Arts Council’s grant programs, cultivate community relationships and develop support services for arts organizations and individual artists. Medley is a graduate of the University of North Carolina School of the Arts with his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in contemporary dance. Jordan continues to work in North Carolina as a freelance dancer and choreographer, and teaching artist.
Debbie The Artist (they/themme) is a non-binary blackqueer-feminist who embodies the power of creative expression as a vehicle for social change. Unapologetic in the pursuit of social justice and racial equity, Debbie pictures a revolutionary society where folks can exercise their fundamental human rights free from fear. This abolitionist politic shows up in all that they do. When they say, “Art is who and what I am”, what they mean is art is their tool, their medicine, their voice and vision. The songbird hails from Durham, North Carolina where they shake, make, bake, and create. Debbie writes music rooted primarily in the lived experiences of love, loss, magic, and triumph.
April Parker is a cultural worker and architect of black spaces using public scholarship, radical librarianship, performance art and direct action. As a community organizer and archivist April centers the lives, histories, legacies, resiliency and magic of queer and trans Black people; while working exhaustively at the intersections of social justice movements to create opportunities for institutional accountability, intergenerational relationship building and creative expressions of resistance. April is a black queer femme, a revolutionary mama and a twin. Her heart work of grassroots organizing emphasizes the liberation and prosperity of Black folks. Parker drives movements forward, agitating public discourse to address systemic oppression and institutional racism to uplift Blackness.
Jordan T. Robinson is a North Carolina-based artist and emerging curator, who runs a creative services brand to help the community, called JTR Presents. Thanks to the support he received from his family, Robinson cultivated a love for the Arts that later inspired him to attend North Carolina A&T State University, where he obtained his degree in Media Design. Soon after, Robinson enrolled in Savannah College of Art & Design to further the administrative skill sets he developed from producing exhibitions independently. In undergrad, he got more involved with handling the administrative tasks involved in producing exhibitions for the art department, while producing artwork himself. His recent work involves an exhibition focused on advocating for the Transgender, Intersex, and Nonbinary community through art and design called The Transparency Project.
J. Andrew Speas is a native of Winston-Salem, NC, and a senior in the BFA Acting program and Minor in Musical. He studied at the UNCSA in the Dr. Marilyn Taylor voice studio. He is alumni of the NC Black Repertory Teen Theater Ensemble where he studied under Mabel Robinson. He is an Actors Equity Membership Candidate (EMC). J. Andrew is a founding member and former Co-head of Outreach at Adynaton Productions a grass-roots company founded in Greensboro, NC by students and alumni of UNCG. Through Adynaton J. Andrew has produced Libations and Brina, assistant director for Mothman: An AntiHate Superhero Comedy and co-director for Andromeda in the Hawthorne Web Series. When J. is not working as an actor or director he teaches theatre arts.
Antoine Williams’ interdisciplinary practice is an investigation of power and perception through the lens of critical race theory. Heavily influenced by science fiction, and his rural, working-class upbringing in Red Springs, North Carolina, Antoine has created his own mythology about the complexities of contemporary Black life. An artist-educator, Antoine received his BFA from the University of North Carolina, Charlotte, and his MFA from UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a member of the North Carolina Black Artists for Liberation (NCBAFL). A group dedicated to making art institutions in North Carolina more equitable spaces for BIPOC communities. He has taken part in a virtual residency at The Center For Afrofuturist Studies, in 2022 he is slated to attend the Joan Mitchel Residency in New Orleans and is in the 2021 Drawing Center viewing program. His work is in the collection of the Mint Museum and the North Carolina Museum of Art. Williams is an associate professor of art at Guilford College.
We welcome your support! Other historically white art organizations encouraged to support this event and participate in related future antiracism actions and meetings. If you would like to donate or sponsor the Black Creatives Revival, please contact Arts Administrator in Residence, April Parker, at 336-686-5971 or email aprilparker@goelsewhere.org.
Special thanks to the Creative Catalyst Program at Kenan Institute of Visual Arts at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts and the Tremaine Foundation for supporting foundational work that led to this initiative.