build
with us
We want to contribute to a world that meets the varying needs of our communities.
Building with us takes a range of forms from making functional objects to curating exhibitions and interviewing Black women for our care history archive. If you are interested in collaborating with us please reach out here.
Collaborators
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Ebere
Agwuncha
@ebere.agwuncha
I am designer and maker, constantly in motion alongside the innate impulse to create. It is key to take care of a design from the precious initial ideation cusp, and all the way through the extensive spiral of processing. In object design for example, a composed narrative can revolve around the hands that transform a concept into a physical rendition. The intimate manipulation of the material maintains this ritual and appreciation for the previous life of that now - care filled object.
My dream is to conceptualize a world with my mind and hands also caring for it through design. Taking charge through conversations that expand the basis of ‘care filled’ design, many more minds can enter spaces that tend to be gatekeepers for pure creation. About 1+ : With one plus seating, the users are placed along the same axis and are...... encouraged to converge with other individuals crossing the space. 1+ integrates within the community space as another mobile extension of growth and requires consistent attention and care from those tending the land. Eventually, the plants grow within this mobile object and blend, latching onto the seasonal transformation throughout the surrounding cultivation - fully embracing the linear axis of growth.
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Chandra
Christmas-Rouse
I am an urban planner and multimedia cartographer. I visualize the maps that we make everyday with our sacred memories, cultural traditions and radical dreams. As I have been curating these
constellations, I have found that my relationship to care is evolving and expanding. I am releasing forms of self care that did not center myself to make more space for my truth. I am
deepening my relationship to care by building speculative practice of radical self-love.
Care manifests as a dream, as a map and as an opportunity. As a dream, care is the love from my
community that reminds me of my best self and feel like I can fly. As a map, care is the grounding energy guiding me back to whom I belong to and whom I answer to. As an opportunity, care is a struggle that I choose to make into an opportunity to listen more deeply to myself and those around me.
Forms of care I would like to receive are compassion and collective dreaming and exchange where I can feel seen, heard and curious. Forms of care I would like to give are gratitude and holding space for people to bring their whole selves and recognize their wholeness as valued and enough.
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Leilani
Douglas
@leilaniddouglas
I am a Chicago-based researcher, vocalist, and writer. As a vocalist, I am interested in the power of song and chant as tools for Black healing, connection, and liberation.
Care has an inalienable relationship to need. I would like to give care that is responsive to the needs of those I am in community with and I’d like to receive care that is responsive to my needs. This also means that care is inseparable from recognition. Are we able to see each other? Hear one another?
From this line of thinking, I’ve come to understand care as a deeply sensory matter that depends on our ability to be present with one another and our senses. Herein, I see the promise for the voice and sound as sites of care that are constantly at work in our lives and also ripe for cultivating in deeper, more intentional ways.
With care memos, I aim to explore (and maybe even expand!) how we understand the layered ways in which the voice and sound can communicate need, offer care, and transcend and reconfigure physical space (acting as sites of care).
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Racha Tahani
Lawler Queen
@crimson_fig
As a Black midwife, I am a healthcare professional, who is also unapologetically political in centering Black bodies in healing. I rely and honor the historical & traditional ways we've cared for and healed ourselves for centuries.
It's imperative that I care for myself first in order to care for others. I sleep in, at every
opportunity my partner supplies. Listening to the stories of my grandparents who were Southerners & farmers who migrated to the West Coast for better opportunities. Learning farming and gardening at an early age from them instilled in me self reliance, and pride in the ability to feed/heal our own. Which I'm passing on to my children, my client's and community. Which ultimately gives them more autonomy in their care/healing.
Rest, sleep, healing, skills towards self reliance, plants/seeds, and acknowledgment are necessary forms of care & healing.
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Zakkiyyah
Najeebah
Dumas-O’Neal
@zakkiyyah.najeebah
I’ve always struggled with how to care for myself, but it has become a priority more recently, although challenging since i find purpose in caring for or servicing people closest to me. more recently, i’ve felt more encouraged to slow the fuck down (WHEN i can) and listen to my body, my feelings, mind, and spirit. As an artist, i’ve been able to rethink care through my relationship to desire, belonging, acts of unveiling, and intimacy within my photo and drawing work. practicing self awareness and self critique is also a form of personal care for me, it expands my way of empathizing with others as
well as moving with more intention.
care actualized for me is: touch, listening to records, cooking, running, prayer, my mother’s voice, sitting down with a hot cup of coffee, watering my plants, debating with the men in my family, reading texts that i can feel, being kissed, a great film, and a good ass cry. i’m a crying advocate and truly believe a good cry releases spiritual toxins,suppressed feelings, and tension from the mind and body.
my first manifestation of care was exemplified by my mother - not that our love languages have always aligned, but she modeled that care can be actualized by what you need, and not always from what you want. navigating all of this doesn’t come without
challenges and it’s never perfect, but i’m always grateful for progress in my journey. Leaning to care for myself and others, has sometimes felt both exhausting and nurturing.
i would love to held and hugged by my friends right now - those near and far away! it’s been very challenging to not have that right now with covid. also - a good tarot reading and more slow days would be great.
cooking meals and baking caramelized pecan sweet potato pies for folks - it’s my greatest love language to others. i’m here to listen if you need to vent or share a personal challenge you’re working through. need to talk about your feelings? i’m your girl.
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Kiayla
Ryann
@theehoneyki
I am a Chicago South burbs native currently living in Los Angeles. Here, I am woodworking and writing a book of poetry. I am led by the source and the people who came before me. When creating,
choosing projects, and partnering, I seek all that aligns with my vision of creating a world that is more whole, more conscious, and more liberared than yesterday’s.
I’m a creator. I create words in rhythms. I create moments and connection on stage, and most recently I created a place of respite out of found wood. Creation is my passion. For me,
It has been an action of liberation.
It has been the thing bringing me closest to my community; closest to the truest part of myself. Creation is miraculous. Creation is...exhausting. Really, it is the most beautiful, most energy pulverizing endeavour. They said even God rested by the 7th day. And yet I spent so much of my life pursuing creativity without a real understanding of restoration, preservation, care.
The pandemic paused most of my creative pursuits and thus paused my unconscious obsession with exhaustion. It unveiled for me how much my pursuit was a distraction from myself; my well being.
My relationship to care is blooming. While before I put pursuits and work before self, I realize that caring for my body, my mind, my soul is the best thing I can do to keep a creative life force. Life itself is a creation and my interest is in taking precious care of this life I’ve been given.
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Sadiyya
Ameena
@sadiyyaameena
I’ve always struggled with how to care for myself, but it has become a priority more recently, although challenging since i find purpose in caring for or servicing people closest to me. more recently, i’ve felt more encouraged to slow the fuck down (WHEN i can) and listen to my body, my feelings, mind, and spirit. As an artist, i’ve been able to rethink care through my relationship to desire, belonging, acts of unveiling, and intimacy within my photo and drawing work. practicing self awareness and self critique is also a form of personal care for me, it expands my way of empathizing with others as
well as moving with more intention.
care actualized for me is: touch, listening to records, cooking, running, prayer, my mother’s voice, sitting down with a hot cup of coffee, watering my plants, debating with the men in my family, reading texts that i can feel, being kissed, a great film, and a good ass cry. i’m a crying advocate and truly believe a good cry releases spiritual toxins,suppressed feelings, and tension from the mind and body.
my first manifestation of care was exemplified by my mother - not that our love languages have always aligned, but she modeled that care can be actualized by what you need, and not always from what you want. navigating all of this doesn’t come without
challenges and it’s never perfect, but i’m always grateful for progress in my journey. Leaning to care for myself and others, has sometimes felt both exhausting and nurturing.
i would love to held and hugged by my friends right now - those near and far away! it’s been very challenging to not have that right now with covid. also - a good tarot reading and more slow days would be great.
cooking meals and baking caramelized pecan sweet potato pies for folks - it’s my greatest love language to others. i’m here to listen if you need to vent or share a personal challenge you’re working through. need to talk about your feelings? i’m your girl.
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Madison
Triplett
@madisonelaine
I would say my relationship to care is growing and expanding as I continue to learn who I am, and understand where I haven't felt care, or cared for and where I have. I also think that I'm
learning how to care for myself before I care for other people. I'm also understanding, like the feeling of caring for someone or something. And following up with the actions behind those
feelings, I think, those can be different for me so I don't always, I might not always act like I care. When deep down, I do but can lack action sometimes. Overall I think my relationship to care has been weird to say the least. But I think that I'm learning. And that my care for the world is growing every day and I'm learning more and more how to show up better for the things and people I care about.
But I definitely feel cared for. And I'm learning the ways in which I want to be cared for in addition to what I experience. I have a huge village around me that cares for me and supports me.
And I also understand the power of God and our ancestors. So when I think about how I manifest care I reflect on listening to my intuition, which usually leads me to someone in my village or just another person that can accommodate the need. So I guess I’m saying I manifest care by following my spirit. Even in spaces that traditionally aren't meant to care for me. I've been able to find people in those spaces that do offer forms of care that I need at the time.
The types of care I would like to receive would be investing in my projects, and not even not just financially but also with time because time is money. So when people are investing their time in my projects, that is a level of care for me that I really appreciate right now. I'm a photographer and filmmaker, and with both of those occupations I need other people, I need to be in a group of some sort. So, I guess community care, which sort of falls in line with what In Care of Black women. It's about community care. Collective care is what I would like to receive.
I would love to give my friends and family a huge hug right now. Something about a good hug can really uplift people, and I think of myself as a pretty good hugger. I also want to continue
contributing to the current Black arts renaissance that is happening right now through my photography and documentary filmmaking and even being a part of this project is a part of that as well. I started a photo series called Black Boy Joy 2020 and the purpose of it is to celebrate the diversity of black males through the lens of joy. It’s a documentary photography project and I photographed my friends, family members and even people that I don’t know to control the narrative of Black men and to provide a platform for them to tell and share their stories in addition to creating positive images that celebrate Black men and boys.
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Dakari
Finister
@duh_kari
My relationship to care is growing more intentional now than it has been before. For most of my life, I put my work and love for others before my care for myself. However, within the last few years, I have been learning how to prioritize my needs. Now my relationship to self care is not based on if I have free time, but more about making and holding that space for myself.
My favorite way to show my care for others is through giving baked goods. I enjoy baking, and it’s even better when I know it’s someone’s favorite. A loved one could be having a hard week, or they could be having the best week of their lives—regardless, I’m delivering cookies. Sometimes its my way of acknowledging that I can’t fix that thing that’s hurting them, and other times its saying I see you and I’m proud of you. It’s important to me that I don’t only show up during the victories, but also during the
hardships.
I like to give myself care by making sure my needs are being met and my wants are being honored. So
sometimes this shows as journaling, painting, baking, or reading. However, it can also be me setting
boundaries with others or giving back to the community, because self-care and community care go hand
in hand. The care I like to receive usually comes in the form of quality time. This usually comes in the
form of a quality conversation with someone’s undivided attention. But collective rest is definitely my
favorite form as the world can be so demanding.
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Karizma
Blackburn
@kvrizma
Coming soon ✼
Upcoming Programming
tending to, on view: at The
Breathing Room Garden
(5045 S. Laflin)
in c/o: Black
women celebration
Sept. 16th, 6:30-9pm
in c/o: practice
Sept. 25th - Nov. 11th
(The Luminary, St. Louis, Missouri)