THE BLACK GIRLHOOD ALTAR

Freedom Square: The Black Girlhood Altar

November 1, 2023—March 10, 2024

Chicago Cultural Center, Michigan Avenue Galleries, 1st Floor East

Photo credit A.  Bruton

Touring The Black Girlhood Altar at the Chicago Cultural Center with my granddaughter, we experience such a powerful, moving installation. That needed no words to tell us what to experience. 

Photo credit A.  Bruton

Photo credit A.  Bruton

Photo credit A.  Bruton

 

photo credit: Scheherazade Tillet, The Offerings to Yemaya, Rainbow Beach Chicago, 2021)

A Long Walk Home is a national art organization that empowers young people to end violence against girls and women. Since its inception in 2003, A Long Walk Home has built a powerful collective of artists, activists, healers, survivors, scholars, and women and girls of color leaders. We are committed to increasing resources and opportunities for society's most vulnerable girls and women in the Chicago area -- low-income girls and women of color, those with disabilities, and LGBTQ-identified -- and those most impacted by violence.

During the uprising and global pandemic in 2021, A Long Walk Home's Chicago-based artists Scheherazade Tillet and Robert Narciso created The Black Girlhood Altar. The Black Girlhood Altar is a multimedia, artifact-based, video, and object-based artwork to create sacred spaces and honor the lives of Black girls and young Black women who have gone missing or been murdered. As a mode of urgent healing – weaving together commemoration and advocacy – the Black Girlhood Altar is built on years of engaged work in Chicago and taking on national prominence. This temporary monument traveled through various neighborhoods in Chicago before being exhibited at the Chicago Cultural Center. Other installations were at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Project Row Houses in Houston, Project for Empty Space in Newark, and the Minnesota State Capitol in St Paul. As a vital cultural institution in the heart of Chicago, the Chicago Cultural Center represents the democratization of arts for public life.

On Freedom Square: The Black Girlhood Altar is intended as a sacred site for missing and murdered Black girls and women. Assembled by A Long Walk Home's artists Scheherazade Tillet and Robert Narcisco and Black Girls in Chicago, the altar is a mixed-media, object-based installation initially created during the pandemic to transform public spaces from trauma sites to collective remembering and power.

The Black Girlhood Altar honors eight Black women and girls: Rekia Boyd, Latasha Harlins, Ma'Khia Bryant, "Hope," "Harmony," Marcie Gerald, Lyniah Bell, and Breonna Taylor, whose deaths or disappearances have galvanized A Long Walk Home's Black girl leaders to be activists and artists. In many cases, injustice defines their afterlives while their stories remain untold, their legacies honored by only a few.

The exhibit is presented in three distinct gallery spaces - Ritual and Prayer, Rest and Recess: The Courtyard, and Call and Response – each introduced by a distinctly colored lightbox.

Freedom Square: The Black Girlhood Altar aims to bring awareness to the issue of missing and murdered women of color, promote community accountability, end gender-based violence, and increase visibility. The exhibition creates a space for artists, families, and community activists to engage in public conversation.

A Long Walk Home is a Chicago-based national nonprofit that uses art to empower young people to end violence against all girls and women. 

DATES TO SAVE:

 Saturday, January 13

12-2pm

Daughters of Yemaya: Spiritual Altar Making

Michigan Avenue Galleries, 1st Floor East

Saturday-Sunday,

March 9-10

Time TBD

Black Girl Takeover: The Black Girlhood Altar Festival

Michigan Avenue Galleries, 1st Floor East

Sistars Samaria Marley- Host Juniper's Garden

https://www.junipersgarden.org/

Junipers Garden is a small-scale family farm in Brandywine, Maryland. We grow herbs, flowers, African American heritage crops, and more. This year we are excited to offer a Herbal C.S.A. membership. The C.S.A. will provide fresh herbs, herbal products, seedlings, and nourishing foods. This C.S.A. is perfect for herbalists, foodies, gardeners, and spiritualists. Build your own home apothecary! 

https://issuu.com/mncppc/docs/brandywine_study/4

2023 Summer Solstice Oasis in The Woods:

An Art & Wellness Festival

Friday, June 16, 2023, 6-9 pm

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/oasis-in-the-woods-an-arts-wellness-festival-tickets-638393942467

"2023 Summer Solstice: The Land" is a living, creative, and cultural experiment with sustainable practice at its center. It incubates the artist's and community's personal and collective transformation.

For one week, June 12-16, 2023, artists of diverse disciplines and ages will converge at Juniper's Garden for a week-long residency. Their collective goal is to build generational bridges while working with ideas and materials that emanate from the land to create installations that answer the question, "How we will rebuild our communities to be stronger and recreate sustainable places to live." Importantly, this conversation addresses environmental justice's physical and psychological dimensions and impact. The residency will occur in Maryland's Prince Georges's County, the Southernmost region, and its remaining rural tier.

On Friday, June 16, 2023, 6-9 pm, as part of the 2023 Summer Solstice Oasis In The Woods: An Art & Wellness Festival at Juniper's Garden, the artists will host an open house where they will be present to offer free and open to the public gallery walks. In addition, they will be contributing stories of their experiences with the South County ecosystem and the process by which their installations came together.

HOST: Samaria Marley

Junipers Garden- 18104 Croom Rd Brandywine MD, 20613/ 202-270-2039 /samariamarley@gmail.com

About the Facilitators, Samaria is a farmer, herbalist, and co-owner of Junipers Garden. She has worked in agriculture and food justice in the D.C. metro region for over ten years. Her innovative and visionary approach has helped to usher in accessible models of food access and community-centered care. She developed the first low-cost C.S.A. model, C.R.I.S.P., in DC 2016. Then went on to manage The Farm at Kelly Miller in NE DC for four years. She is also the co-founder of the D.C. Mutual Aid Apothecary, a mutual aid organization that connects people to herbal medicine, education, and community.

She began her herbalism journey in 2015 and has studied with Wild Ginger Herbal Center, Well of Indigenous Wisdom, and the Vermont Center for Integrative Herbalism. She is also a 2022 Braiding Seeds Fellow. Samaria and her partner Blain recently opened Junipers Garden, a small-scale vegetable and medicinal herb farm in Brandywine, MD, whose mission is to provide a space for black and brown people to be on land, reclaim their ancestral healing and farming practices, traditions, and seeds and gain access to valuable knowledge and resources. The farm hosts seasonal events, herbalism workshops, retreats, and natural building workshops.

D.M.V. Black Owned and Operated Farms

https://www.marylandmarketmoney.org/news/dmv-black-owned-and-operated-farms-d6ta3

Special thanks to the Black Church Food Security Network, Future Harvest, and Maryland Market Money participating markets for helping us compile this perpetually growing list. If we left somebody out, it was not intentional. Please let us know using the form below.

Maryland

Harwood Community Garden Baltimore, MD

Hidden Harvest Farm Baltimore, MD

Honey Hemp Farms Upper Marlboro, MD

Jenny's Market Friendship, Maryland

Kindread Hill Farm Ellicott City, MD

Maxine's Garden at Pleasant Hope Baptist Church Baltimore, MD

My Mustard Seed St. Leonard, MD

Myles Produce Capitol Heights, MD

Native Mountain Farm Boonsboro, MD

New Brooklyn Farms Prince George's County, MD

Peaceful Acres Farm Glenwood, MD

Plantation Park Heights Urban Farm Baltimore, MD

Pop! Farm Baltimore, MD

Primo Noir Capital Heights, MD

Purple Mountain Organics Takoma Park, MD

Real Food Farm Baltimore, MD

Strength to Love II Baltimore, MD

Sweet Love Flower Farm Upper Marlboro, MD

Tripple Springs Farm Brandywine, MD

Whitelock Community Farm Baltimore, MD

Windy Willow Farm Sunderland, MD

804 Cattle Company Upper Marlboro, MD

Backyard Basecamp Baltimore, MD

Baltimore Free Farm Baltimore, MD

Bearfoot Farm Baltimore, MD

BLISS Meadows Baltimore, MD

Bon Secours Community Works Baltimore, MD

Cherry Hill Urban Community Garden Baltimore, MD

Elements of Nature Clinton, MD

Curemore Farms Upper Marlboro, MD

Deep Roots Farm Brandywine, MD

Dodo Farms Brookeville, MD

Double Z Cowboy Corral Faulkner, MD

Empower Project Baltimore Baltimore, MD

Eco City Farms Riverdale, MD

Filbert Street Garden Baltimore, MD

Flower of the Forest Farm Lexington Park, MD

Four Mothers Farm Princess Anne, MD

Friends of Great Kids Farm Baltimore, MD

The Green Anarchist Annapolis, MD

The Greener Garden Urban Farm Baltimore, MD

Harlem Park Community Farm Baltimore, MD

The H.A.T. Shop (Healthy Alternative Treatment) MD

Washington, D.C.

Good Sense Farm Washington, DC

Three Part Harmony Farm Washington, DC

Soilful City Washington, DC

Cultivate the City Washington, DC

DC Greens Washington, DC

Dreaming out Loud Washington, DC

District Growers Washington, DC

Virginia

Gardens of Khmet Madison County, VA

GoGreen Farms and Greenhouses VA

Melanated Medicinals Prospect, VA

Mighty Thundercloud Edible Forest Birdsnest, VA

Sun Path Gardens Richmond, VA

Sylvanaqua Farms Montross, VA

Vanguard Ranch Gordonsville, VA

Waddle Om Farm Scottsville, VA

WoodBox Farm Engleside, VA

5th District Mini Farm Richmond, VA

Airport Food Forest Ashland, VA

Botanical Bites Provisions Fredericksburg, VA

Browntown Farms Warfield, VA

AgNCulture Brunswick County, VA

Carter Farms Orange County, VA

Cusheeba Earth Onley, VA

Haynie Farms Reedville, VA

Fitrah Farms Orange County, VA

https://farmersmarketcoalition.org/the-anti-racist-farmers-market-toolkit/

Rekindling this list of Black farmers and growers in the D.M.V. region (with a focus on Maryland) in honor of Black History Month. 

Black farmers comprised 14% of America's farmers almost a century ago. Today, they account for less than 2%. 

Maryland Market Money is proud to support Black farmers and food producers.

We encourage you to use your dollars to do the same at markets, farm stands, and C.S.A.s every month.

Chantel Bennett Joins "Oasis in the Woods" 2023 Retreat

My name is Chantel Bennett, and my preferred pronouns are she/her. I hold a Master's degree in Social Work. I believe in dreaming before thinking as you climb the ladder of trust and power. This is beautifully captured in the words of Toni Morrison.

Chantel (she/her) is a Caribbean-American multidisciplinary artist and spiritual diviner. She hasn't found a medium she won't try at least once and often cycles through periods of focusing on one or three mediums more than others. She is currently focusing on fiber arts and collage.

 

After learning how to knit through TikTok and YouTube University, she is working on replacing her storebought sweaters and knitwear with clothes she knit or crocheted herself. She learned how to crochet from her mother at a young age and often has at least two fiber projects going at once. 

She uses collages for emotional expression and has led therapeutic art journaling and collaging sessions for over 7 years. After completing her Master's in Social Work at the University of Maryland, Baltimore, in May 2023, she plans to become an art therapist and incorporate creative self-expression into her therapy practice.

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/oasis-in-the-woods-an-arts-wellness-festival-tickets-638393942467

"Pause Portal" a Place for Collective Reflection, Imagination, and Transformation

 https://www.liminalgrace.com/

Sanskrit term for Vinyasa- is a smooth transition between asanas in flowing styles of modern yoga as exercises such as Vinyasa Krama Yoga and Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga, especially when movement is paired with the breath. Vinyasa yoga, also called "flow" because of the smooth way the poses run together, is one of the most popular contemporary styles of yoga. It's a broad classification encompassing many different types of yoga, including Ashtanga and power yoga.

Soul Flow is a slow-flow vinyasa yoga class that moves to the rhythm of your deepest breath. Gigi will guide you through a heartfelt practice of longer holds & fluid transitions that unite your mind, body & soul. Designed to expand body awareness, rejuvenate the mind, and deepen spiritual growth, this installation will nourish you inside & out and act as a portal to the artist's installations at Junipers Garden Environmental Art  Installation Galleries. 

Gigi is a holistic wellness educator, experience curator, 200-hour certified vinyasa yoga teacher, social justice advocate, and an eternal student of life. She uses the principles of yoga, mindfulness attitudes, and natural wisdom as catalysts for ease, empowerment, and liberation. With a strong belief that holding space for collective reflection, imagination, and transformation is the key to meaningful change, Gigi regards her work as spiritual activism. Her teaching style honors the beauty and nuance of the human experience while encouraging individual power and curiosity along the way.

What We're All About

In between the past, which we cannot change, and the future, which has not come yet, lies the only place we have any actual power- the present. This liminal space presents (pun intended) an opportunity to transform our experience of life.

So in the face of that opportunity, we began asking...

What if we met the present moment with the slow & steady wisdom of Earth?

The adaptable flow of water?

The burning enthusiasm of fire?

The easeful lightness of air?

And the deep knowing of ether?

What kind of life could we make for ourselves?

What kind of world could we create together?

At Liminal Grace, this is both our adventure & our ministry.

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/oasis-in-the-woods-an-arts-wellness-festival-tickets-638393942467