Photo: Robbie Sweeny – House/Full of BlackWomen
Artist As First Responder (AAFR) is a 4-point philanthropic and interactive arts platform that acknowledges, engages, and financially supports Black, Indigenous, and other Artists of Color whose creative practices heal communities and save lives.
EXHIBITIONS
Curated by Ashara Ekundayo and on view at /(slash) until December 17, 2022
Collective Arising: The Insistence of Black Bay Area Artists
Co-Curated by Ashara Ekundayo and Lucia Obunmi Momoh, on view at the Museum of Sonoma County until November 27, 2022
ARTIST RESIDENCIES & FELLOWS
AAFR Artists-In-Residence & Fellows
AAFR offers space, opportunities and resources for artists to explore their practices.
A physical container for imagination, inquiry, activity & rest for BLACK CREATIVES (In-partnership with AAFR)
GENEROSITY
The Reflection Fund for Artists
City of Oakland, Human Services Department, Re:CAST, Fall 2020/Summer 2021
#AAFR Founder
Ashara Ekundayo
Curator and Cultural Theologian
Photo: Demondre Ward
for Umber Publishing
Ashara Ekundayo is a Black feminist independent curator, artist, cultural theologian, creative industries entrepreneur and organizer working internationally across cultural, spiritual, civic, and social innovation spaces.
Through her company AECreative Consulting Partners she places artists and cultural production as essential in equitable design practices, real estate development, and movement-building.
Her intersectional worldview offers an Afrofuturist framework to the public sector that centers the lives, traditions, and expertise of Black womxn of the African Diaspora. She sits on the Advisory Boards of the Global Fund for Women “Artist Changemaker Program,” San Francisco MoMA SECA Committee, and the Oakland Public Conservatory of Music.
In 2019 she founded and currently stewards Artist As First Responder, an organization and 6-point philanthropic, interactive arts platform that reifies artists whose practices heal communities and save lives. She also serves as a forum curator at the Museum of The African Diaspora, is Co-Founder of Black [Space] Residency, and is the Cultural Strategist for Chef Bryant Terry’s 4Color Books, an imprint of Ten Speed Press. www.Ashara.io
Christian Walker
Creative & Social Economies Manager
Christian Walker is a Creative Director whose professional arts practice embodies a range of roles including fashion designer, model, image consultant, campaign stylist, photographer, and social entrepreneur. He is the owner of STUDIOS, a fashion and lifestyle brand based in Oakland, CA.
Christian designs and produces a myriad of outward-facing programming in his role and is the visionary and steward of the “Men’s Wellness Fellowship” - a monthly collaboration with the Sol Affirmations organization and motivational speaker Karega Bailey. The forum invites men of color to convene for a meal and roundtable discussion on vulnerability, safety, and daily wellness practices.
Ietef “DJ CAVEM” Vita
Climate Justice Artist-In-Residence
From an early age Cavem has had a deep connection to environmental activism and food justice. Raised in Denver’s Five Points district, often referred to as the Harlem of the West, his interest for gardening and hip hop helped him resist the snares of gang lifestyle. Becoming vegan at age 14, he said he felt a calling to speak about these issues in his songs, “especially since most of the neighborhoods considered food deserts were people of color.” His 2007 debut single “Wheatgrass” with rapper Stic.Man of Dead Prez hit top ten on the charts in Spain and introduced him to the public as an OG (Organic Gardener). It led to his 2010 debut album The Teacher’s Lounge, followed by 2012’s The Produce Section, which featured collaborations with Speech from Arrested Development, Drummi Zeb from The Wailers, and Sa-Roc. Part album, part curriculum, The Produce Section offered lessons on organic gardening, plant-based recipes and alternate uses of energy.
Since then Cavem has traveled the world as both a performing artist and an educator. He’s shared the stage with Nick Jonas, Public Enemy, 2 Chains, Questlove, Wyclef Jean, among others. Offstage he’s involved with numerous organizations and projects dedicated to promoting wellness, eating healthy and environmental awareness.
Marcella Sanchez
Studio Assistant
Marcella Sanchez began her love of photography as a child growing up in Oakland, CA. She soon became obsessed with the fundamentals that make a great photograph: lighting, balance, composition, and use of space. She shares her passion through private sessions and events, studio and lifestyle product photography, and personal blogs.
In addition to photography, she has been an advocate of medical cannabis for over 20 years. Along with her parents, she started the country's first medical cannabis magazine, Greenkind. She was the publication’s lead photographer and had the pleasure of shooting many of medical cannabis's most famous and revered activists.
Her photography has been featured in multiple shows on the East and West Coast, in magazines, in a national billboard marketing campaign, and online. She also enjoys shooting events. For weddings, family, elopements, and parties, she brings a non-intrusive narrative to each event she shoots. She is the recipient of the Dream Keeper Enterprising Creative Cohort Grant, Enterprising Creatives: Test Market Laboratory Cohort Grant, the October 2023 Curator-in-Residence at The Black Curator’s Lab through Artist As First Responder at the Minnesota Street Art Foundation, and a 2023 recipient of a San Francisco Arts Commission Dream Keeper Initiative Artist Grant.
Marcella is also the Studio Assistant at the Artist As First Responder office/lab located at Minnesota Street Project Studios and also at the AfroPortals Project Space & Archive at Liberation Park in East Oakland. This project’s first public showing and a retrospective of her work debut in October 2023 at the Minnesota Street Art Studio.
NiQueen Jones
Abundance & Administrative Steward
NiQueen Jones is on a mission to inspire and transform lives through art, education, and an unwavering commitment to positive change. A dynamic and passionate Oakland-based multidisciplinary artist with a versatile skill set, she masterfully traverses realms from visual art, creative writing, and photojournalism, to music. For over 20 years she has been a teacher and hip-hop historian who intersects social justice, cultural heritage preservation, youth empowerment, and mindfulness.
NiQueen is currently a candidate for an MA in Arts Management and Entrepreneurship, a 2024 AfroUrban Society Lit From the Black Fellow, and an Emerging Artist Fellow with YouthSpeaks in collaboration with the California Arts Council.
Zandashé Brown
Digital Media Manager
Zandashé Brown is a storyteller and writer/director born-and-bred in southern Louisiana. She has a background in programming, artists development, and social media strategy for arts organizations. As a daughter of the abandoned American South, she blends Black Southern introspection and spirituality with surrealistic horror to tell stories about neglected places and peoples. Zandashé is a current Film Independent Amplifier fellow, an alum of the 2022 Sundance Screenwriters Lab and Directors Lab, and of the 2021 Tribeca Chanel Women’s Filmmaker Program. She was named one of Filmmaker Magazine’s 25 New Faces of Independent Film for 2022.
Sam McGinnis
Executive Assistant to Ashara Ekundayo
Sam McGinnis (they/them) is a queer writer, maker, and organizer in Oakland. In 2021 they co-founded BLOOM, an Oakland-based artist collective that champions local artists of color and queer&trans artists, especially those in the early stages of their careers. They currently manage Courtney Desiree Morris’ studio and work closely with EARTH Lab SF as an administrator and production manager. They have recently stewarded projects such as Queer Expression Oakland and the National Queer Arts Festival.
Thank You to AAFR Sponsors
Walter & Elise Haas Fund
William + Flora Hewlett Foundation
The San Francisco Foundation
Lacun Giving Circle Fund
Tao Rising
Wakanda Dream Lab
Women’s Foundation of California
Rebuild Foundation
Ruth Foundation for the Arts
AECreative Consulting Partners LLC
African American Art & Culture Complex
Akonadi Foundation
Anonymous
City of Oakland Human Services Department
Culture Change Fund
Bay Area Cultural Funders for Equity Fund
Libra Foundation
Tides Foundation
AAFR Advisory Board
Alisha B. Wormsley
Angela Wellman
Gia Hamilton
Halima Afi Cassells
Jessica Care Moore
Jihan McDonald
Sabrina Nelson
Sonya Renee Taylor
Tracy Tademy
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Angela M. Wellman is an award-winning musician, scholar, educator, and activist from Kansas City, Missouri. She has called Oakland home since 1987. In 2005 she co-founded the Oakland Public Conservatory of Music (OPC), a vanguard institution that centers blackness in the development of American musical culture and identity. Since opening its doors, OPC has provided rigorous, affordable, and culturally-relevant music education for people of all ages. Angela is a third-generation musician and has performed with many noted musicians such as the McCoy Tyner Big Band, Joe Williams, and Dee Dee Bridgewater. She is a recipient of multiple local and national awards, including the City of Oakland “Cultural Key to the City,” the Jazz Journalists Association's Jazz Hero Award, the Arhoolie Award, the 2020 Caffie M. Greene Community Building Award from UPSurge! NY, the prestigious National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Study Fellowship, the 2021 Alameda County Arts Leadership Award, and the 2022 Lifetime Achievement Beacon Award from the International Women’s Brass Conference. As a music education activist, her work is centered on ensuring access to music education for African American students. As a scholar and researcher, her research explores the impact of racism and white supremacy on access to music education for Black students. Angela's passion for and commitment to creating access to culturally sustaining music education has kept her developing pathways to meaningful experiences in music for the people of Oakland and beyond for the past thirty-five years.
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jessica Care moore is one of the leading voices of her generation. An award-winning poet, recording artist, book publisher, activist, cultural arts curator, and filmmaker, she is executive producer and founder of Black WOMEN Rock! - Daughters of Betty, a 20-year-old rock & roll institution, concert and empowerment weekend, and she is the founder of the literacy driven 501c3, The Moore Art House. Her nonprofit organization in Detroit dedicated to elevating literacy through the arts in neighborhoods and schools.
moore’s publishing house, Moore Black Press, has published poets including Saul Williams, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, asha bandele, and Danny Simmons, and in 2024 is preparing to publish their first poetry and spoken word audiobooks through an imprint deal with HarperCollins. Throughout her career, moore has mentored youth across the United States and has lent her voice and time to juvenile detention centers, prisons, universities, and art institutions and global community causes around the world.
In 2023 Moore became the new voice of Pure Michigan and was commissioned to write a series of visual poems to celebrate the city and the state. Her poem, “I Am Detroit Summer” received tremendous adoration from Detroiters from all walks of life who felt as if the campaign truly celebrated the beautiful, working class people of their city. In 2022, Gucci sought after jessica’s gift, and commissioned her to write the poem, “We Wear The Working Day” as a homage to Detroiters and their style and work ethic. A stanza of the poem graced the side of the Siren Hotel for an entire year and she would later be a judge for the next muralist.
moore has recorded her poetry with hip-hop legends including Common, Nas, Jeezy, Talib Kweli,Karriem Riggins, Detroit techno pioneer Jeff Mills and Eddie Fowkles, The Last Poets, Jose James, Roy Ayers and more. moore is the author of The Words Don’t Fit in My Mouth, The Alphabet Verses The Ghetto, God is Not an American, and Sunlight Through Bullet Holes. Her fifth book, We Want Our Bodies Back (HarperCollins, 2020) won the American Library Association Black Caucus Poetry Honor. Her first children’;s book, Her Crown Shines (illustrated by Dare Coulter), is slated to be published by HarperCollins in 2025. Moore’s poem for the Supreme Court Justice caught the attention of Oprah Winfrey, who shared it widely on her social media pages.
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Alisha B. Wormsley (Pittsburgh, PA, USA) is an interdisciplinary artist and cultural producer. Her work contributes to the imagining of the future of arts, science, and technology through the black womxn lens, challenging contemporary views of modern American life through whichever medium she feels is the best form of expression, creating an object, a sculpture, a billboard, performance, or film and thrives in collaboration. Recent exhibitions, projects and public art commissions in partnership with; the Oakland Museum, VCUArts Qatar, Speed Museum, Southbank Arts London, Times Square Arts and the Carnegie Museum of Art. Wormsley’s project, There Are Black People In the Future, which gives mini-grants to open up discourse around displacement and gentrification and was also awarded a fellowship with Monument Lab and the Goethe Institute. In 2020, Wormsley launched an art residency for Black creative mothers called Sibyls Shrine, which has received two years of support from the Heinz Endowments. She is a 2022 Guggenheim Fellow in Fine Arts, an Awardee of the Sundance Interdisciplinary grant, the Carol Brown Achievement award among others. Wormsley has an MFA in Film and Video from Bard College and currently is a Presidential Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Carnegie Mellon University.
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Gia M. Hamilton is an applied anthropologist who employs Social Magic™ methodology to investigate land, labor and cultural production while examining social connectivity within institutions and community. As a model builder, Hamilton co-founded an independent African centered school, Little Maroons in 2006; later, she opened a creative incubator space- Gris Gris Lab in 2009 and designed and led the Joan Mitchell Center artist residency program in New Orleans as a consultant from 2011- 2013 and director from 2013-2018.
As the Center Director, Hamilton led the development of the two acre campus capital project using a workforce development project HyperLocal and designed the program as a place based, community centered laboratory for visual artists, curators and the creative community with the belief that imagination and creativity are paramount to creating a more equitable and socially just society. Currently, Gia is the architect of her latest projects: Afrofuture Society and Dark Matter Projects. In 2019 she became the Executive Director and Chief Curator of the New Orleans African American Museum
Hamilton received her bachelors in cultural anthropology from New York University and masters in applied anthropology from City University of New York’s Graduate Center. She is on the board of Artists First Responders, Alliance for Artist Communities and, Museum Hue. Hamilton recently received the 2018 Next City Vanguard fellowship and was nominated for the 2018 City Business Woman of Year award and was City Business 2022 Hospitality Leader. Gia currently lives in the Treme neighborhood in New Orleans with her family.
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Jihan McDonald [They/Them] is currently an Adjunct Professor at the California Institute of Integral Studies in the Somatic Psychology department specializing in intercultural competency for future therapists. Their professional practice also includes working as a facilitator/ritualist in holistic leadership development and emotional-spiritual integration for activist/artivist communities.
Jihan holds a B.A. in Spanish Language & Culture from Spelman College, an M.A. in Social Transformation from the Pacific School of Religion, and an Adult ESL teaching certificate. They are most excited by working at the intersections of culture, community, art, and spirit and developing culturally rooted responses to the terms of our times that cultivate wholeness and healing, especially for socially marginalized and neglected folks.
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Tracy Tademy, a first-generation Bay Area native, is a passionate advocate for the arts and a dynamic force in connecting diverse communities through creativity and culture. Known as "the needle that pulls the thread," Tracy has a gift for weaving together individuals, ideas, and resources to foster meaningful collaborations and amplify the impact of artistic initiatives.
Tracy has cultivated expertise in leadership, innovation, and the power of art to drive social change. Through her work managing high-level engagements and building strategic relationships, she has developed a unique ability to align creativity with actionable outcomes. Tracy is recognized for her skill in streamlining processes, coordinating complex projects, and ensuring that creative visions are brought to life with precision and impact.
Tracy’s dedication extends to her personal creative pursuits, including her aspiration to create and curate a fashion line that embodies her distinctive aesthetics and spirituality. With a strong background in fashion styling, she also aims to offer personalized styling services, empowering others to express their identity and creativity through fashion.
Whether championing emerging talent or spearheading initiatives that promote equity and innovation, Tracy’s vision and influence are instrumental in shaping a vibrant, inclusive arts landscape that has the power to heal, unite, and inspire.
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Halima Afi Cassells (b. 1981) is an award-winning interdisciplinary community-engaged artist/gardener/mom currently working in her hometown of Detroit. Born into a creative family, her parents photographed her unsolicited murals and fashion as a kid. Community is the heart of her work. After a decade of creating murals, she credits gardening as inspiring her move away from painting into a practice using materials and processes that foster thriving of (human and non-human) communities. Spanning two decades, she continues to co-create spaces for connection, narrative deconstruction, collective healing and community empowerment through various media.In addition to Detroit, her work has been featured in NY, Oakland CA, Berlin, Copenhagen, Bogota, and Harare.
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Sabrina Nelson was born in the wake of the ‘67 Rebellion in Detroit, Michigan. She is a painter by degree from Detroit’s College for Creative Studies. Influenced by Yoruba Religion, as well as Eastern and African philosophies, Sabrina’s work is a combination of spirit, motion, and intimacy. Not limited by two dimensions, the scope of her work also includes sculpture, objects, performance and installations.
Sabrina has been a professional artist for over 35 years and an educator for nearly as long. As a studio art teacher at the Detroit Institute of Arts, she lectures and performs artist demonstrations. She is also on staff at the College for Creative Studies, where she works hard at motivating and preparing students to pursue art degrees in Detroit.
Sabrina has lectured on the preservation of Black Feminism in Art at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit. She is a guest curator at both The Carr Center and the Music Hall Performing Arts Center. For over 30 years she has judged art competitions, curated numerous art talks and exhibits, and conducted interviews of guest artists for the City of Detroit’s Culture video channel MyDetroitCable.
Her work has been exhibited at the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, and the African American Art in Culture complex in San Francisco. Sabrina’s work has also been exhibited in Florida, New York, Louisiana, Illinois and Ohio. Her work is in the permanent collection of the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History and private collections in Florida, New York, Ohio, Georgia, California, and Michigan. She has also shown work at Jakmel Gallery as part of Art Basel Miami, as well as at the American University in Paris.
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Korise Jubert III is creative Director of Photography and Editor with over 10 years of experience shooting documentaries, events & festivals, corporate & non-profit short films, and archiving Oakland’s music, arts & culture. He is known for his intuitive vision, cinematic style, and passion for creating meaningful captivating visuals.
Starting his own production company in 2014, Korise is the owner and operator of Townfuturist Media. Korise is inspired by creative collaboration and building community and documenting legacy stories. He sincerely believes that every project, big or small, is one of a kind, and each one deserves its own unique visual style. Korise's first goal in every production is to help you achieve your vision, and to ensure that the visuals he captures have the maximum possible impact on your audience.
Some of his camera and cinematography work have been featured in film festivals such as TriBeca Film Festival, SF Film Festival, Sebastopol Documentary Film Festival, Rotten City Film Festival, Better Cities Film Festival, Fist Up Film Festival, Black Film Connect Festival and Tallgrass Film Festival. Korise and Townfuturist Media have also received a Telly Award for a socially conscious short film and Afro ComicCon ‘Future Award’ from their International Film Festivals.
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Sonya Renee Taylor is one of many hands currently called to midwife the new world. She is a guide, poet, storyteller, vision holder, intuitive astrologer, and evangelist of radical love. She is the author of seven books including the New York Times bestseller The Body Is Not an Apology: The Power of Radical Self Love (2021) and her most recent offering for young readers The Book of Radical Answers (2023). From International Poetry Slam Champion, to wilderness counselor, to public health professional to the visionary and architect of the global media and education company The Body is Not an Apology, Sonya’s journey has been about touching the hem of those on the margins and weaving our stories back into oneness. Sonya is a global citizen currently helping to birth written, digital, and land-based offerings that move the world toward the embodiment of liberatory radical love.