I had the very distinct pleasure of serving on the advisory committee for the 7th annual Womxn’s Creative Industries Meet Up this year. Womxn’s Creative Industries Meet Up is an intergenerational, interactive event for resource-sharing between womxn-identified media makers, specifically centering young womxn of color. The 2019 Meet Up, “Art in the Digital Landscape,” was held at Seattle Central Library downtown on Saturday, April 27. Compared to previous years, the format was changed to allow more connection, engagement, and dialogue. We began the afternoon with an introduction and group activity lead by host Angela Brown. Angela then facilitated a panel of three brilliant womxn of color: ChrisTiana ObeySumner, Natasha Marin, and Jenny Ku aka “The Shanghai Pearl.” The final portion was a community dialogue. We sat in a circle together and discussed what mattered to us as womxn navigating artistry in the digital landscape, especially self-and-soul care. It was an empowering, much-needed, and rejuvenating space. Some of my photos from this lovely day:
(Left) Angela Brown, MA, Media & Cinema Studies. Angela identifies as a queer, black, femme and approaches storytelling, media & evaluation, and small business with a creative intersectional equity justice lens. She handcrafts her own organic skin & hair care line, Brown Angel All Naturals in Seattle brownallnaturals.com. (Right) ChrisTiana ObeySumner, MNPL is a social equity advocate, educator, and consultant. They are the founders of Epiphanies of Equity: Education and Consulting, and The Eleanor Elizabeth Institute for Black Empowerment. Their process is based in their lived experience as an Autistic and disabled, Black and Indigenous, Femme-presenting yet fluid person.Natasha Marin is a conceptual artist working across disciplines and media to collaborate with People to create opportunities for meaningful IRL and digital engagement. She is founder of the Facebook Group REPARATIONS. Her creative work takes many forms: poetry, video, sound, performance, and immersive and interactive installation. She is a Cave Canem fellow and a Hedgebrook alum who has been published in periodicals like the Feminist Studies Journal, African American Review, and the Caribbean Writer.Jenny Ku is a Seattle based performing and teaching artist, arts administrator, and director that explores otherness, gender, sex, wildness, power and the body politic with stagecraft, humor, and an abundance of glamour. Her work has been featured in theaters worldwide and has shown locally at the Seattle Art Museum, Seattle Asian Art Museum, The Wing Luke Museum of the Asian American Experience, Cornish College of the Arts, and the University of Washington. (Left) Jenny Ku. (Right) Womxn’s Creative Industries founder Amy L. Piñon.“Womxn’s Creative Industries fosters space for discovery, inspiration, and collaboration within creative industries, always through an intersectional feminist lens.”
Womxn’s Creative Industries advisory committee and board members (Left) Elizabeth Maze, and (Right) Nancy Chang.
“We believe that centering the voices of the most underrepresented identities in creative industries (folks who identify as womxn of color, black, indigenous, queer, disabled, immigrant, refugee, low-income) will lead to the dismantling of systemic oppression and the liberation of people of all identities.”
