PAST convenings AND PERFORMANCES
BLACK SPATIAL RELICS 2021 CONVENING | Virtual
FEBRUARY 23 - 27, 2021
We came in community through song, dance, archive, investigation, movement, experience, building, breath, through lines, dreaming, improvising, and more, through virtual visual patchworks of home, place, family, and any assortment of background. It was a truly generative and grounding collection of events featuring guests Ebony Noelle Golden, Germaine Ingram, Dr. Deborah Thomas (Center for Experimental Ethnography), Viktor L Ewing-Givens, curation by Shanel Edwards and Jumatatu M. Poe and offerings from our 2020 Artists-in-Residence Misty Sol, Danielle Deadwyler, Crystal Z Campbell and Ada Pinkston .
Did you miss the convening, or want to watch events again? Go here to watch and explore our archive of events, including our opening and closing Keynote, AIR Artist Talk, Caribbean Zine Share-out, and Black Diaspora Artist Salon.
BLACK SPATIAL RELICS 2019 CONVENING | PHILADELPHIA, PA
THURSDAY NOVEMBER 14, 2019
ARTIST TALK WITH JULIE B. JOHNSON AND MUTHI REED | 4:30PM AT INSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY ART PHILADELPHIA
muthi reed shares their work on House of Black Infinity // wildin at the artist talk. Photo Credit: Shanel Edwards
Black Spatial Relics Artists-in-Residence, Julie B. Johnson and muthi reed in were conversation with Alice Paul Center Visiting Artist and Black Spatial Relics Director, Arielle Julia Brown. Black Spatial Relics is a new performance residency about slavery, justice and freedom. At the intersection of the 400th year anniversary of slavery in the U.S. colonies and the 100 year anniversary of women's suffrage, this discussion addressed how Julie and muthi’s projects intersect with histories related to gender.
Black Spatial Relics: Artist Talk was the launch event of the 2019 Black Spatial Relics Convening.
FRIDAY NOVEMBER 15, 2019
PERFORMANCE SHOWCASE | FEATURING VITCHE-BOUL RA, RAYLA RESHAWN, MISTY SOL, DENISE VALENTINE AND ABDUL-ALIY MUHAMMAD AS HOST | AT THE PAINTED BRIDE
Viktor L. Ewing Givens shares about his work Mo’lasses in Crockett, TX. Photo Credit: Shanel Edwards
This showcase investigated freedom amongst narrative, storytelling, and an array of embodied practices. Pointing toward the multitudes of approaches to Black freedom, the showcase engaged works in varied forms and stages of development amounting to a space for collective witness and dreaming.
Hosted by activist, artist, writer and co-founder of the Black and Brown Workers Collective, Abdul-Aliy Muhammad, the evening featured the brilliant works and practices of Vitche-Boul Ra, Rayla Reshawn, Misty Sol and Denise Valentine. The evening also held opportunities to learn about other efforts nationally working to convene witnesses in and around Black vigilant performance including the works of Marisa Williamson, Jodie Lyn-Kee-Chow, Crystal Z Campbell and Viktor L. Ewing Givens.
Rayla Reshawn shares her work, Untitled, at the showcase. Photo Credit: Shanel Edwards
SATURDAY NOVEMBER 16, 2019
WORKSHOPS | JULIE B. JOHNSON 10AM -11:15AM, MUTHI REED 11:30AM - 12:45PM | HEADLONG
Julie B Johnson facilitates her workshop on Idle Crimes & Heavy Work at Headlong Studios. Photo Credit: Shanel Edwards
Workshop participants witnessed and experienced the practices of Black Spatial Relics artists-in-residence, Julie B. Johnson and Muthi Reed in Saturday morning workshops at Headlong Studios. Participants encountered the work of these two artists as they discussed and activated the foundations and methodologies of their projects.
JULIE B JOHNSON’S WORKSHOP AND PROVOCATION
10am-11:15am Julie B Johnson - “Moving Our Stories: Idle Crimes & Heavy Work”
“Moving Our Stories: Idle Crimes & Heavy Work,” invites participants to map embodied cultural memories to explore the history of incarceration and convict labor. Centering the historical criminalization of stillness (“idleness”) that has very real implications for black women’s labor today, we reflect on gendered and racial violence, resistance and restoration, and the commodification of our working bodies that helped build the landscapes around us. Together, we move, write, watch, speak, reflect, and create. All are welcome.
MUTHI REED’S WORKSHOP AND PROVOCATION
11:30 - 12:45pm muthi reed - HOUSE OF BLACK INFINITY// WILDIN
walking. relocating a few North Central and Uptown Philadelphia stories, muthi reed will share recipes, remedies, libations and provisions for wildin.
W • I • L • D • I • N
wow/we infinity looks dreamy inside noir
BLACK SPATIAL RELICS: THINK TANK | 3pm Headlong Studios
In an effort to determine ways that Black artists making work around/up-next-to/betwixt histories and presences of slavery, freedom and justice can support each other and advocate for the needs of each other in our respective spaces/fields/institutions etc, Black Spatial Relics hosted a think tank gathering. This was a moment to conspire, dream, offer mutual aid, articulate shared need and celebrate our abundance.
Culture workers gathered at the Black Spatial Relics: Think Tank. Photo Credit: Shanel Edwards
THE 2016-2017 BLACK SPATIAL RELICS ARTISTS | PROCESSES AND PERFORMANCES
Che applies performance research through Afro-Indigenous Liberatory Practice as they develop their work.
BLACK SPATIAL RELICS ARTIST-IN-RESIDENCE, ChE Ware is seen here researching and developing their site specific performance work in the Nightingale-Brown house at Brown University.
Jaymes Jorsling's Tripping Over Roots has a first table read at Rites and Reason Theatre
Jaymes and ChE met with public historian and curator, Elon Cook to learn local histories of slavery and the slave trade in Providence, RI.
Jaymes and ChE go to the John Carter Brown Library to do research on the Brown family's involvement in the transatlantic slave trade.
