soulful safespace sundays
current programming components for soulful safespace sundays are centered around providing opportunities for artists to be in conversation about their intersectional healing and creative processes through intentional critique, cultural criticism, and shared meditation.
soulful safespace sundays, in previous program components have facilitated intentional space for artists to gather in many different capacities and integrations, all while on Sundays.
those engagements have looked like space for discourse over community building, grief spaces dedicated to Breonna Taylor and Ma'Khia Bryant, workshops on building diy art spaces that dismantle unjust art systems, juneteenth retreats, artist meetups, and more.
soulful safespace sundays: open critiques
returning june 2024
archives
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Soulful SafeSpace Sunday: Juneteenth Retreat
06.19.2022
A day of intentional retreat centering connection, reflection, and restoration. This special Juneteenth Edition of Soulful SafeSpace Sunday was dedicated to the spirit of the living embodiment of - Ancestral Freedom.
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Soulful SafeSpace Sunday: On Community
04.24.2022
A private invitational gathering dedicated to the Black, Brown, and Indigenous femmes - who have supported and uplifted us in community.
What does it mean to build community? What are the ways in which we are individually and collectively responsible for our shared freedom and liberation.
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Soulful SafeSpace Sunday: Cristina Victor and Cesar Lopez
06.13.2021
Within their practices, both artists materialize storytelling, symbols, the history of flag making, and ethnography to form their understandings of place and belonging.
Through shared artist presentations, meaningful feedback, and communal discourse we were able to learn more about these artists’ work while also noticing similarities that connect their practice and experiences.
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Soulful SafeSpace Sunday as Communal Resistance: In Honor of Ma'Khia Bryant
04.25.2021
“Rarely, if ever, are any of us healed in isolation. Healing is an act of communion."
- bell hooks
Through an open forum format, this session was dedicated to communal resistance following the cleared police charges in the shooting of teenager, Ma'Khia Bryant. Grounded by meditation lead by Azi Rae King, participants were encouraged to share art and dialogue that made space for raw emotional healing and released anger and rage.
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Soulful SafeSpace Sunday: Because of This
03.07.2021
For the first session of 2021, we spent time together building intentions and goals for the space and ourselves. This edition of Soulful SafeSpace Sundays was in collaboration with “Because of This,” an exhibition + performance series that reclaimed space and centered the work of local and regional contemporary artists of the African Diaspora, while purposefully building a multidisciplinary peer network for BIPOC artists in the Midwest region. “Because of This” was hosted and supported by Charlotte Street Foundation in Kansas City, MO and was curated by Mary Lawson, our cofounder.
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Soulful SafeSpace Sunday: Breonna’s Sunday
09.27.2020
This emergency session was created in response to the need to be in sisterhood and community to mourn our sister, Breonna Taylor.
Our time together manifested as a sacred grief circle that made space for sharing and releasing individually. We came as we were and prioritized vulnerability through shared ritual, meditation, herbalism, song, and oral storytelling. Thank you to the folks who shared and held us on Breonna’s Sunday.
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Soulful SafeSpace Sunday: A Love Note to Omaha
03.01.2020
Our first session was affirmed and uplifted by a meditation selection from June Jordan’s 1978 poem for south African women - “we are the ones we’ve been waiting for.” We engaged in shared meaningful exchange and discussion lead by artwork from Alajia McKizia, Celeste Butler, and Cristina Victor.
This inagural session of Souful SafeSpace Sundays was held at Bemis Center for Contemporary Art in an effort to bridge the gap between BIPOC local artists and visiting artists in residence.