Group 1 - Preserving Culture and Building Community through Black Art!

‘Our project focuses on using artistic expression as a vehicle of change and empowerment.’

Suuba Demby is a senior at the College studying biology and global health. Her individual project is titled “The Inheritance of Black Sound”. She will be exploring the role of music sampling in modern music and how it serves as a form of intergenerational musical inheritance and community building. 
Daniella Saforo is a sophomore at the college. Her individual project title is Black Wave: Music, Love, Friendship. She will be mainly exploring the importance of Miriam Makeba and her relationship with Nina Simone. 

Manciana Cardichon is a junior at the college studying computer science. Her individual project is titled “Black in Space”, a series highlighting black people in spaces where we are not normally represented in the mainstream.

Remka Nwana is a junior at the College studying economics with a secondary in African Studies. Her individual project is called “Poetic Justice”, an exploration into the history and impact of spoken word on black liberation and confidence.

Nana Anyanwu is a junior at the College studying biomedical engineering. His individual project is Rhythmic Reparation and he will be exploring the significance of sonic instrumental elements and lyrics in characterizing Black experiences and stories,

Venus Chidinma Nnadi is a senior at the College studying Social Studies and African American Studies with a secondary in Computer Science and a language citation in Igbo. Her individual project, titled “Dancing through the Diaspora,” aims to highlight how Afrofusion dance has been a means of connecting Black people all over the diaspora.

Resource List

  • Music is a World: Stevie Wonder and the Sound of Black Power (the chapter starts on page 191)

  • Spotify Music Playlist:

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/408qT8i44JatcGfq2pzYnl?si=8da85eea51b44ae8

  • Larry Neals The Black Arts Movement

http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/maai3/community/text8/blackartsmovement.pdf

  • Necropolitics

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/39984https://muse.jhu.edu/article/39984

  • Harvard Office for the Arts

https://ofa.fas.harvard.edu/about-dance

  • Omo Naija X Wahala Boys

https://instagram.com/omoxwahala?utm_medium=copy_link

 

Group 2 - Freedom Visions

“We believe in the power of using art and music for our collective liberation.”

Amechi Egbunike

Asa Coleman

Brenda Ceja, (who uses they and she pronouns) is a junior at the College studying Folklore & Mythology with a secondary in Ethnicity, Migration, Rights. They are interested in studying the ways analog music, especially vinyl records, spark memories, nostalgia, and storytelling across communities. They are also inspired by community archives, zines, and oral histories. In her free time Brenda enjoys visiting record shops, roller skating, and DJing. Their project is an informal archive of WHRB’s department, The Darker Side. 

Nathan Fleming

Rich Jenkins

Resource List

  • That’s My Song! Archiving WHRB’s “The Darker Side” by Brenda Ceja

 

Group 3 - Uplifting Black Womxn and Femmes

“Our Project focuses on using art to showcase the livelihood of Queer Black Womxn and Femmes and resist the erasure and misrepresentation of this community.” 

Chelsea Offiaeli is a senior studying Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and African American Studies. Her project “Making Queer Black Identities Visible,” focuses on combating the misrepresentation and erasure of Queer Black identities through a podcast with the Harvard Woman of Color Collective.

Barisere Tuka, a first-year that’s potentially declaring History and Literature with a secondary in Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies

Khalila Lord-Arond, a first-year thinking about concentrating in psychology or neuroscience 

Wooddynne Dejeanlouis, is a junior studying Environmental Engineering. Her film project focuses on confronting negative images and stereotypes of Black Womxn through self determination.

Resource List

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Group 4 - Finding Beauty Within: Self-Representation and Black Womanhood

“Our projects span from selfie projects and fashion shows to literary analyses and games that center love, embodiment, acceptance, safety, joy, and community.”

Aimee Howard: Aimee is a first-year at the College planning to study Government and African/African American Studies. Her project is titled “Freedom Fashion” 

Alena Blaise: Alena is a senior at the college studying Biomedical Engineering with a secondary in African American Studies. Her project is titled “Black Sex Sells”

Erika Smith: Erika Smith (she/her) is a junior at the college studying Social Studies. Her project is titled “On My Mama, On my Hood, I Look Fly, I Look Good”

Kyra March: Kyra (she/her) is a senior at the College studying African American Studies and Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality with a Language Citation in Gullah. Her project is titled “Kyra’s Kards For Kommunity.”

Molly Martinez: Molly (she/her) is a senior at the College studying History & Literature (Ethnic Studies) with a Secondary in Government and a Spanish citation. Her project is titled, “The Power of Reclamation: Black Femme Voices in Carceral Literature.”

Resource List

  • Association of Black Harvard Women: abhwomen.org Instagram: @abhwgram

  • Mbembe, Achille. "Necropolitics"

  • Giorgio Agamben, Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life,

  • Collins, Patricia. "Mammies, Matriarchs and Other Controlling Images"

  • Combahee River Collective Statement

    • (1977)http://historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/combrivercoll.html

  • “Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power” - Audre Lorde from Sister, Outsider

  • Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia

  • “Fashion Show Vol. 3” . Savage X Fenty: savagex.com

  • Maisha Winn’s We Are All Prisoners,1971-1972

  • Sally Belfrage’s Freedom Summer, 1964

  • Angela Davis’ Autobiography, 1974

  • Huey Newton’s and Ericka Huggins’ Insights and Poems, 1975

  • Assata Shakur’s Assata, 1970s-1989s

  • Joyce Brown’s Joyce Ann Brown: Justice Denied , 1990

 

Community Organizer Guests

Asya Abdrahman 

Founder. Entrepreneur. Regenerative Multidisciplinary Artist. Educator. Community Organizer.

www.asyaabdrahman.com

Asya Abdrahman is an Oakland and San Francisco regenerative world building, multi- disciplinary artist, curator, and entrepreneur who considers the intersection of cultural identity, human rights and the environment in her work. Of Somali, Eritrean, and Ethiopian heritages, she fled her East African homeland during a time of regional wars. Abdrahman’s work promotes cultural and ecological survival, advanced through her use of human, technological, natural, found, and recycled resources. In addition to exhibiting her art, Abdrahman is the founder of Kindness Grocery Cooperative which produces regenerative practices on the future of work, commerce and community events like Bath Party.

Kindness Grocery Cooperative 

www.kindnessgrocerycoop.com

Who Are We?

Emerging out of the 2020 pandemic Kindness Grocery Cooperative originally aimed to provide the basic necessity of food to those in need. Since its inception, our project has expanded into a multifaceted operation focusing on achieving collective healing and sovereignty on all levels ranging from food security, dignified community networks, sustainability, digital wellness, land access, and equity building. Our team is a diverse collection of members with vastly different backgrounds and experiences to take on the challenges we face in society today.

Founders

Asya Abdrahman 

Founder. Regenerative Multidisciplinary Artist. Community Organizer. Multi-collaborator. Maker.

Adrian Bello

Co-Founder. Artist. Creator. Community Organizer. Bridge Weaver. Conceptual Architect. Event Curator. Medicine Maker.