‘Artist As First Responder’ Recognizes and Supports BIPOC Artists As Essential Workers
Curator and Cultural Theologian Ashara Ekundayo founded the organization as a multi-pronged platform for artists whose practices heal communities and save lives
Ashara Ekundayo (Photo credit: Demondre Ward)
OAKLAND, CA - June 3, 2021 - Ashara Ekundayo — a Black feminist, independent curator, cultural theologian, artist, creative industries entrepreneur and organizer working internationally across cultural, spiritual, civic, and social innovation spaces — developed Artist As First Responder (AAFR) as a means to reimagine and reify artists’ fundamental purpose within society. As a construct, AAFR honors the essential and historical role that Black, Indigenous and other Artists of Color have in community healing and care. In practice, AAFR is an organization and 6-point philanthropic, interactive arts platform that acknowledges, engages and financially supports BIPOC artists who show up first in crisis and celebration to forge solutions, heal communities, and save lives through their creative practices. Highlights of this platform include The Reflection Fund For Artists and Black [Space] Residency and the BLATANT forum and live zine series.
Eli Jacobs-Fantauzzi, artist and AAFR board member (Photo credit: Stephanie Bouzard)
“Ashara is a forward thinker, a cultural warrior and always ahead of the curve. As the mainstream is starting to ask the questions how to cultivate joy and help Black, Indigenous, and Artists of Color heal, Ashara has been doing this work for decades and creating models and institutions that will last lifetimes,” says filmmaker Eli Jacobs-Fantauzzi. “Ashara's work feels like a huge embrace. Her work centers love and community. She has been able to create models, institutions and spaces that help us all to remember our way forward. Ashara has always been a huge inspiration to me and is one of the first people to help me on my journey of becoming a filmmaker. She is able to envision the future while working in the present to create spaces for our collective joy and healing.”
Ashara Ekundayo at “Breaking The Silence” Oakland Town Hall on Girls & Women of Color”
Ekundayo first publicly introduced the concept of Artist As First Responder in February 2016 at the inaugural “Breaking The Silence” Oakland Town Hall on Girls & Women of Color, a convening space for cis and trans girls and women of color to share their stories with Bay Area community members and local decisions makers to creatively and collectively identify opportunities for intervention and community transformation. Building on ideas of how to better address community needs, collaboratively change, and imagine the beauty of the collective future through art, Ekundayo has since developed AAFR into its own, independent organization.
Ekundayo ultimately contextualizes AAFR as part of a greater conversation inspired by and with spiritual reverence for the powerful work of Black thinkers, activists and artists that came before her, including the Black Feminist Movement, the Combahee River Collective, Octavia E. Butler and James Baldwin.
“It has been said that there is no revolution without the artist. ‘Artist As First Responder’ has evolved from a long lineage of Black radical, feminist thought,” said Ashara Ekundayo. “If art is a vehicle of revolution, then AAFR recognizes the essential, healing and catalytic roles that Black artists and other artists of color have always held within our communities. Through AAFR, I am committed to fostering a robust ecosystem through which artists can thrive.”
In Crisis and Celebration: The AAFR Ecosystem
Black Joy StoryWindows, Oakland, CA (Photo credit: Ashara Ekundayo)
Artist As First Responder nurtures BIPOC artists’ role in social change and acknowledges their work in both trauma-informed and joy-informed healing. AAFR poses that artists show up first in Crisis and Celebration to forge solutions, heal communities, and save lives through Design, Practice, Invitation and Presentation. The organization offers to artists a robust ecosystem and platform for power-sharing and building through its six-point approach that includes:
Public talks
Print and publishing initiatives
Exhibitions
Artist residencies
Grants
Site-specific ceremonies
Current program highlights include:
Photo credit: Courtney Desiree Morris
BLATANT: a forum and live zine series authored and facilitated by Ashara that centers the lived experiences and radical imagination of Black womxn artists and cultural workers creating across discipline and geography.
The Reflection Fund for Artists (RFA): a cross-sector regranting, pilot project of AAFR. RFA awards direct, unrestricted financial support to Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color, Oakland-based individual cultural practitioners, arts laborers, and artists working across genre and discipline to acknowledge and honor that their creative arts practices heal communities and save lives. Grantees are selected by a small anonymous panel of creatives. RFA is partially funded through the ReCAST Grant awarded to the City of Oakland Human Services Department.
Black [Space] Residency (BSR): a physical container for imagination, inquiry, activity & rest for Black creatives Co-Founded by Ashara Ekundayo & Erica Deeman. This artist residency welcomes Black people working in curatorial, written, visual, performance, musical and media arts who demonstrate a liberatory art praxis in the work. The 2021 BSR inaugural year was Bay Area/Invite-Only but will offer a national Open Call for 2022.
AAFR reflects a greater consciousness in Oakland and beyond to invest in artists, healers, culture-bearers, creative businesses and cultural groups/organizations. As affirmed in the "Artists in Action" Townhall led by The Center for Cultural Power, marginalized communities “look to the cultural sector to help break old ways of thinking and reimagine what just and equitable policies, resources, and leadership can look like for all of Oakland’s people.” Despite the essential nature of creative communities, they are grossly underrepresented and underfunded, especially as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Some key national stats include:
Nonprofit arts & cultural organizations have lost an estimated $16.5B (as of 5-10-21)
Across the country, compared with white artists, BIPOC artists have experienced higher rates of unemployment (69% vs 60%) and lost a larger percent of their creative income (61% vs 56%)
Among ALL artists/creatives, 52% have been unable to access or afford food at some point during the pandemic and 43% have not visited a medical professional due to an inability to pay.
Get Involved: Opportunities to Nurture the AAFR Ecosystem
Black Women Wail Collective and Ashara Ekundayo invite you to Say Their Names: Black Women Wail For Black Women and Girls
For more info > https://fb.me/e/JyhMWxVk
Saturday, June 5-6 - The Black Women Wail Collective will come together for the second time to mourn our loss, engage in our healing and plan our resistance. The collective will conjure and manifest an end to Black death and on June 5th and specifically demands an end to violence against Black women and girls in the city of Oakland.
Join Black women activists, organizers, advocates and culture workers as they activate healing spaces in East & West Oakland. The event begins at Sunrise in Defermery Park (Little Bobby Hutton Park). For 24 hours, the collective will wail, read poetry, perform, scream, plan, plot, plant activate, conjure and ignite peace, wellness and healing.
All are welcome to attend but ONLY Black women will be welcome inside of the circle or to speak. If you would like to talk or submit a recorded piece to be played over the 24 hour ritual, send a 3 minute recording to (510) 239-7056.
The co-founders of Black Women Wail are Ayodele Nzinga, Cat Brooks, Carroll Fife, Ashara Ekundayo, Carolyn Johnson, Chaney Turner, Dr. Crystallee Crain, Venus Morris, Tonya Marie Amos, Mizan Alkebulan, Tonya Marie Amos, Pastor Cherri Murphy, Clarissa Douthard, Margo Hall, Regina Evans, Falilah Bilal, and Amara Tabor-Smith. #allviolenceisstateviolence #wetakecareofus
Thursday, June 10, 6pm PST - Oakland Art Murmur presents BAY AREA ART & EQUITY PREMIER: On Afrofuturism! Oakland Art Murmur is proud to present a video premier of the first conversation in their Bay Area Art & Equity panel series. In this series of three conversations, they invite BIPOC Art leaders to narrate the Bay Area art scene, interrogate the traditional fine arts narratives, dive into BIPOC cultural movements and honor essential contributions by BIPOC Bay Area artists. Set a reminder and watch on YouTube here. Learn more about the event here.
June 15, 4:00-5:00 pm PST - For the next installment of BLATANT, Ashara will be in conversation with guest Patrisse Cullors. The forum will be co-presented by the Museum of the African Diaspora (MOAD) and in conjunction with San Francisco Pride month on Patrisse Cullors is a New York Times bestselling author, educator, artist and abolitionist from Los Angeles, CA. Co-founder of the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, Patrisse has been on the frontlines of abolitionist organizing for 20 years. To RSVP for this event, please visit https://www.moadsf.org/event/blatant-a-forum-on-art-joy-and-rage-with-host-ashara-ekundayo-4/
Community members are welcome to support Artist As First Responder in a number of ways. Ashara Ekundayo is available for public speaking events or to write about Artist As First Responder. Supporters can also subscribe to AAFR via Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/m/artistasfirstresponder
For more information, please visit https://www.artistasfirstresponder.com/
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About Artist As First Responder:
Artist As First Responder (AAFR) is a 6-point philanthropic and interactive arts platform — founded by Ashara Ekundayo — that acknowledges, engages, and financially supports Black, Indigenous, and other Artists of Color whose creative practices heal communities and save lives.
About Ashara Ekundayo:
Ashara Ekundayo is a Black feminist, interdisciplinary creative arts leader committed to an intersectional framework of social transformation that expands the influence and impact of arts and culture on racial equity, gender & justice, and environmental literacy and one that necessitates a practice of recognizing joy in the midst of struggle. Working internationally across cultural, spiritual, civic and social innovation spaces, Ashara embodies a range of roles including independent curator, cultural theologian, artist, creative industries entrepreneur, organizer, mentor and mother.
Ashara founded and currently oversees Artist As First Responder (AAFR), an organization and 6-point philanthropic, interactive arts platform that acknowledges, engages and financially supports BIPOC artists who show up first in crisis and celebration to forge solutions, heal communities, and save lives through their creative practices. She also serves as Cultural Strategist for Chef Bryant Terry’s 4 Color Books, an imprint of Ten Speed Books.