SunShine Raynebow, she her they them queen goddess; this is a piece about self love a reminder to always love yourself.

Nakeysha Roberts Washington, she/her; Inspired by the anthropological and creative work of Zora Neale Hurston, Anthropologist (2023) explores the act of documentation and archiving. The poem illuminates my purpose for writing and reveals the ancestral truths that shape my Black American existence as part of the African Diaspora. Looking over eons of histories inscribed in my mitochondria—through the eyes of a poet, anthropologist, archivist, storyteller, and griot—my writing and creative work serve as both an altar for my ancestors and undeniable proof of existence for my kinfolx.

Fatima Laster, she/her; is a self-taught interdisciplinary visual artist, curator and owner-operator of 5 Points Art Gallery + Studios. With a Black American vantage point, Laster’s independent and communal practice broaches social-political subject matter (i.e. racism, sexism, classism, cultural appropriation, housing/land appropriation/displacement also known as “gentrification”, etc.), producing resistance art imbued with humor or irony in an attempt to disarmingly reveal rejected or overlooked perspectives and people.

 

ellery pascual, he/she: My creative practice is deeply rooted in my Afro-Latino and queer identities as I am constantly empathizing with the world around me, forging connections between my intersectionality and the passage of time. My artworks serve as artifacts of an internal archive that can only be accessed through the distorted residue of emotions tied to distant memories. I work like Frankenstein, creating mixed-media paintings, drawings, and ceramic sculptures by piecing together fragments of my memory, emotions, and interpersonal experiences. These monster artworks become an extensive catalog of personal symbols and imagery, exploring the complexities of gender, femininity, and my relationships with others in my life. My intention is to create empathetic artwork that encourages viewers to reflect on the echoes of memories as feelings and to acknowledge the unseen aspects within each of us that inherently connect us all.

Ladasia Bryant, she/her; is a recent graduate from the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design, specializing in Communication Design (Class of 2023). She was a K-8th grade Art Teacher at Hope 3 Christian schools. I have recently transitioned into working as a program coordinator with PEARLS for Teen Girls. My creative journey converges graphic design, fine art, and curation, with a profound focus on community and meaningful change through the arts.

Kaena (Moss) Tucker She/Her He/Him; These necklaces represent a metamorphosis, the one that I’ve gone through to get to where I currently am, metamorphosis is something we all go through. For me metamorphosis is growing, moving, and experiencing new things in life. For this I have chosen to combine solder and rocks found around my home, these pieces are an experimentation and in a sense bring comfort. This is similar to the way we move throughout our lives, everything is an experiment until we become comfortable in it.

 

Tayla She/They; As an emerging Queer Black Artist in Milwaukee, my work is deeply tied to my roots, my history, and the relentless fight for my own joy and peace in a world that tries to deny me both. I create as an act of resistance, as a way to honor my full truth, and as a reflection of the culture and society we navigate daily. I am often turned to as a resource, yet viewed as unworthy of resources. My art is a testimony—a glimpse into my vulnerability, and an unfiltered archive of who I was yesterday. I am Mississippi Band Choctaw. That is my ancestry too. My very being is always an act of resistance during these times.

 

LaNia Sproles, they/them; I create portraits informed by kinship, natural landscapes and agitating systems of power. My subjects are portrayed as fantastical representations of myself and my chosen family. They fluctuate in form to dispute marginalized bodies as sites incapable of credence and complexity. I aim for my compositions to form together like I’m setting a stage for a play. This intention is set to pay homage to my peers and to preserve their autonomies in dream-like scenarios and fantasies. These explorations are rendered through interdisciplinary methods comprised of drawing, printmaking, painting and occasionally collage. Ultimately, I create works that celebrate communal structuring.

 

Portia Cobb, (She/Her); My inspiration is drawn from personal and collective memory, re- memory and playing in the archive to witness, reconstruct and radically reimagine what we’ve been forced to forget. For more than 20-years, I have been documenting rural communities in Coastal South Carolina, and parts of the far-flung Black Diaspora in West Africa, the Caribbean and Latin America. Themes of belonging, home, dislocation, and resettlement ignite my creative impulses and imagination driving my quest for what author Christina Sharpe (In the Wake) described as a “past that is not yet past.”