The Cookout: Kinfolk and Other Intimacies is a virtual exhibition in celebration of African Diasporan traditions of gathering, particularly ways of togetherness that maintain history, culture, and ritual through active participation. Artists include: Ndidi Emefiele, Evan Ifekoya, Jacolby Satterwhite, Shellyne Rodriguez, Larry Achiampong, Raelis Vasquez, Jessi Jumanji, Jamaal Peterman, E. Jane, Alexis Chivir-ter Tsegba, Zola Savage, Ken Nwadiogbu, Emmanuel Massillon, Melvin Nesbitt Jr., Nakeya Brown, and Lionel Frazier White III
Run P. aka Righteous Jones and his ultra groovy host, Specks "Funky" Johnson, take us on a Blacktastic joyride through soul music for the virtual opening party of The Cookout. Join us for a two hour dance-party that is sure to bring all of the vibes...
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Stay tuned for the episode of Fried Dynamite to be released on Monday, June 22.
LIBATIONS: The CookOut is a storytelling performance art piece where dialogue is shared over a table installation with a live cookout as the backdrop, celebrating full bodies Black Joy. Joining us at the table will be curator Maleke Glee, Carmen Robles-Inman, and Octavia Yearwood. Who's bringing the potato salad?!
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Stay tuned for the performance video, coming soon.
A digital art gallery featuring the works of father and son photographers Barry and Alex Mayo. Individually each explores the relationship of photography to time to share their collective past experiences that led them to the moment of capture. It's an intergenerational story that is about the learned and the inherited through the lens of fatherhood.
A series of downloadable worksheets from the UK-based makers of Black History Activity Books, videos and books made by Black illustrators and children's book authors via the Beautiful Blackbird Children's Book Festival, and more.
LINK (Black History Activity Books)
LINK (Beautiful Blackbird Children's Book Festival)
Calling all growers, patients and advocates to discuss how home-grown cannabis cultivation can repair the physical, mental, and economic health of our communities. Led by Rafi Aliya Crockett and Dewey Ortiz, Executive Producers of Higher Power (a documentary that chronicles the fight to end the criminalization of cannabis), in conversation with, Jamila Hogan (Herbal Alternatives), Kia Jackson (The Black Experience in Cannabis), Tahmika and Jason Aldrich (The Reset Wellness Group), and John Che Larracuente (medical cannabis advocate) & more.
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Stay tuned for the performance video, coming soon
Repping the streets of the Bronx, NY, Petey DeAbreu is a fast-rising star on the New York City comedy scene. He has appeared on Comedy Central Digital’s Up-Next series, helped produce Ilana Glazer's special The Planet is Burning on Amazon Prime, and is a regular at comedy clubs all over the five boroughs. Growing up, Petey recognized the power of humor, using it as a preemptive strike to keep from getting into fights at school and around his hood. With his unique view of the world, influenced by comedy legends like Richard Pryor, Petey presents something for the grown folks at the cookout: A night of comedy and he's bringing some friends along, including Reggie Conquest, Alex English and Paris Sashay.
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Stay tuned for the performance video, coming soon
While you may know Chef Santana Caress Benitez as Lourdes "LuLu" Blackmon from the Spike Lee directed series, She's Gotta Have It for Netflix, she's also a Food Network Chopped champion. Now you can join Santana at her kitchen table in Puerto Rico with her new show, I'll Cook Like Your Mother, where she offers a full range of private cooking lessons, life hacks, tips and more in these first two episodes.
LINKS
EP 1: Caribbean Healing at Home
The MoCADA Digital premiere of Seven Mothers, a short film inspired by the life of Kerby Jean-Raymond, designer of Pyer Moss, directed by Director X. Seven Mothers is a love letter to the women who raised Jean-Raymond after his mother’s death, and his spiritual journey towards healing from grief in touching vignettes, as these seven strong women impart lessons about food, business, fashion, academics, sport, family, and faith. Presented with Urbanworld Film Festival.
A virtual check-in for the African diaspora that explores how our communities are navigating the COVID-19 crisis and the global movement for Black lives, prioritizing mental health with healing advocates Aisha Tyehimba (spiritual, mental and body wellness), Catherine Labiran (Black immigrants and gender justice), Pervis Taylor III (Black men), and Khumo Masege (LGBTQ+). Moderated by MoCADA's Khethiwe Mnganga + Diamond Marie Gonzalez St. Baptiste.
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Stay tuned for the performance video, coming soon
Listen to an audio diary based on a series of transformative days in the life of Dion as remembered by Detroit based BLK queer artist, digital curator, and writer, Darryl DeAngelo Terrell. Explore personal narratives, gender, and sexual identities and performance, the idea of American blackness, ideas of safe space, black leisure, and fictional storytelling through Darryl's lens in six episodes.
Seattle-based Afrofuturist musician, SassyBlack, provides sustenance and the sage in sonic spades. The intergalactic-minded songwriter and producer, who’s traveled the world in performance, offers listeners a 007-style glint in her eye while displaying signature piano licks and drum kicks like a full banquet in her communicative soul, West coast style...
Dallas, Texas bred, Peabody award-winning filmmaker and musical artist Terence Nance (An Oversimplification of Her Beauty, Random Acts of Flyness, Swimming in Your Skin Again, and Univitillen) joins the MoCADA Cookout to explore how art made by Black artists is made in resistance to White influence. How much do Black artists consider the kind of audiences that support their work, especially when it comes to commerce? If the audience is a liberal crowd that is more often than not White, is their work still considered Black art or a kind of performance? Writer Tracy Jones leads the discussion.
Thank you for joining us!
Stay tuned for the performance video coming soon.
Join us for a virtual conversation to discuss important lessons from Octavia E. Butler’s Parable series. As we reflect how protagonist Lauren Oya Olamina confronts the apocalypse with courage, community, and practical knowledge we will contemplate how our own skills can be cultivated for the future we want to create. This conversation will be hosted by the Black Magic Afrofuturism Book Club and Moon Mother Apothecary founder, AfroDominican herbalist, artist, and community organizer Suhaly Bautista-Carolina.
Join us on FB LIVE
A virtual, 30minute, guided meditation set to inspire us for action and reflection led by Brittany Micek. Brittany is the founder and lead organizer of Meditating for Black Lives, a grassroots organization focused on bringing the principles and practices of various meditation traditions to heal the collective community conscious from oppression.
Join us on Facebook Live
Righteous Jones is an audio mix series by Run P., that consists of music and commentary that encapsulate pressing social justice moments of yesteryear and today – news clips, interviews and speeches on civil rights, racism, women’s and LGBTQ+ rights, to police brutality and more. Through this series Run P. gives platform to the voiceless while shining a light on the logical shortcomings of white supremacy.
LINK will appear on July 3.
Freelance writer Keiona Williamson, whose work covers Black life, culture, politics and the ways systemic racism permeates American society (like managing large scale projects such as The 1619 Project and more), reflects on her childhood in a personal narrative about growing up Black, entitled "Auntie Grace's House. In it she writes about the all-too familiar, the coming together of family and the values we share across the diaspora.
The full title of this dissertation by Chasia Elzina Jeffries at the University of Southern California explains it all: "The Role of #BlackLivesMatter, Black Twitter, and Flint, Michigan in Modern Day Respectability Politics". As Black Americans refuse to conform to white standards, becoming more and more proud of our Blackness and as innocent Black children continue to be murdered, the efficacy of respectability politics is becoming questionable. 'Nuff said.