Keena Azania Romano
Visual Artist/Muralist
Oakland/Richmond | USA
Keena Azania Romano exercises her creative mind through the exploration of diverse artistic mediums as a way to engage and understand individual and collective purpose. Romano received her BFA from Pomona College then returned to her native Bay Area to pursue a career in the Arts. Her Murals can be spotted from Sacramento, California to Oaxaca, Mexico.
Inspired by cultural practices, Romano combines spirituality with urban experience to produce work that draws upon the quest for a greater understanding of intersectional beauty in this world. She fuses traditional native arts with contemporary inner-city techniques to reflect a new language that encourages the healing and empowerment process between community members and their environments. Her style is described as “vibrant and insightful”.
She aspires to travel and create a colorful trail of art by exploring the modern Diaspora based on her multi-ethnic experience.
Kelly Greenlight
Ritual Performance Artist/Organizer
Nairobi | USA
Currently based in Nairobi, Kenya, Kelly 'GreenLight' Thomas is a ritual performance artist, wellness worker and cultural organizer. A New Jersey girl with roots in Alabama and The Commonwealth of Dominica, Kelly is currently pulling from her diverse cultural background to build a body of children’s music that addresses positive self esteem, cultivating healthy relationships and embracing the natural world. For over a decade, Kelly has been creating music & performance around emotional health, women’s narratives, and nature. As a performance artist, Kelly conceives interactive & transcendent arts experiences that activate her background in gender studies, theater, group dynamics, Afro-Diasporic cultural practice, and holistic healing.
Kelly is the foundress of Black Arts Retreat, a community arts organization which focuses on exploring African diasporic art and culture, communing with nature and holistic wellness through retreats, workshops and affinity groups in the US, digitally and around the world. Through Black Arts Retreat, Kelly has facilitated groups in Bahia, Brazil Berlin, Germany and throughout Haiti since 2016. Kelly holds a Bachelor's Degree in Educational Theater from NYU's Steinhardt School and a Sound and Music Integrated Practitioner Credential from the New York Open Center
Ifayomi Christine
Filmmaker/Multidisciplinary Artist
Detroit | USA
Ashley ‘Ifayomi’ Douglas is a Black Queer multidisciplinary artist, healer, and filmmaker currently based in Detroit, MI. Ifayomi’s work is centered around ritual, memory, self intimacy, and prayer. She finds inspiration in the layered stories and experiences of Black Femmes, African diasporic connections to water, ancestral magic, and finding “home.” Her objective is to synthesize the worlds of ancestral healing, art, and wellness with intention centered on accessibility. Her artistic credits include Allied Media Conference’s Ethics and Aesthetics Film screening, Detroit Narrative Agency’s Radical Remedies Film Series, Art Basel 2019 for N’Namdi Gallery, and Danny Brown’s “Flower Car” with Eightfold Collective Studios and Lisa Waud
Oganga Mangiti
Poet
Nairobi| Kenya
Oganga Mangiti, is a poet, born, raised and residing in Nairobi, Kenya. He has been writing poetry from 2010, with his debut poetry anthology, “Love and Pain,” coming out in 2019. The book contains poems which focus on the emotions of love and those of pain, with the belief that going through each emotion individually, leads to the process of healing and growth through acceptance.
His work has been described as poetry of emotion, as it mainly focuses on the emotions of love, pain and heartbreak. He initially started writing, to express the emotions he felt; but that has morphed into a constant search; using words to express different emotions and social issues. He draws a lot of his influence from African writers, such as Chinua Achebe, Francis Imbuga, Margaret Ogolla and Ijeoma Umbinyo; and poets such as R.H Sin and the oriental poet, Rumi.
Currently, Oganga Mangiti, is working on his second book, which will focus on the themes of blooming and coming of age. He is also constantly engaged in growing his art form and experimenting with various forms of expression. Furthermore, he has engaged in various campaigns, using poetry and prose in various digital and marketing campaigns.
Trabolee
Rapper Artist
Nairobi | Kenya
Truth Reigns Above But Only Love Exists Eternally is coded in my rap name while Tra is Art is a mantra that mirrors my innermost reflections when I'm creating. I've always been amazed at how the mundane nothingness of life can be transformed into a canvas ,especially if one is in-tune enough to see the patterns and connections that are always presenting themselves in the now.
I'm a recording and performing artist who conveys his creativity through the genres of Hip Hop and spoken word poetry but not necessarily limited by them. My art stretches the imagination through varied subject matter that ranges extensively from the sacred to the profane, from the profound to the mundane.
Nzilani Simu
Visual Artist
Nairobi | Kenya
Nzilani Simu is an illustrator and graphic designer born, raised and based in Nairobi, Kenya. She specialises in illustration, hand lettering, infographics, identity design and is passionate about design for social impact - particularly when it comes to an African lens and projects focused on women's rights. She has over ten years of experience working as a freelancer and for creative agencies. She has a BA in Sociology from the University of Western Ontario, and a BA in Graphic Design from Curtin University in Malaysia. In the last few years, she has been working on her art brand Kulula; Kulula comes from the Kikamba word meaning 'to draw' and is an outlet for more creative ideas and personal expression using illustration and mixed media. In addition to this, Nzilani works as a graphic design teacher in a Nairobi college.
Afatasi The Artist
Fine Art Textile Artist
San Francisco, CA | USA
Afatasi The Artist, is a cultural curator of Afro-Polynesia. Born and raised in San Francisco, California, Afatasi is a multidisciplinary creative, whose mediums include, and are not limited to: textile artist, designer, writer, poet, photographer, and singer/songwriter. She creates fashion, art, prose, and music, all through her unique Afro-Polynesian lens and perspective. A few of her personal values include: honoring ancestors, the DECOLONIZATION of spaces, Black Lives Matter, self-love and Afros.
Okhiogbe Omonblanks Omonhinmin
Interdisciplinary Artist
Accra | Nigeria
Okhiogbe Omonblanks Omonhinmin is from Benin City, Edo State, Nigeria. Omonblanks is a creative director, independent cultural producer, creative director. He has 15 years of experience in organizing, producing, and curating cultural projects which includes working with musicians, music production, films, tours, record producers, indie labels, and festivals across various capacities.
Judith Dyeme Daduut
Sculptor/ Installation Artist
Jos, Plateau State| Nigeria
Judith Dyeme Daduut is a young, rising contemporary artist who specializes in sculpture. A Fine Arts graduate from Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria and a Master’s degree in Art and Design from Birmingham City University, UK, she has received recognition for her work in by the following body
▪ Winner, Most outstanding lady (category) at the Life in My City Arts Festival (LIMCAF) Enugu State (2018).
▪ Winner Best Sculpture/Ceramics /Installation Category at the Life in My City Arts Festival (LIMCAF) Enugu State (2017).
▪ She was one of the 25 finalists at the Life in My City Arts Festival (LIMCAF) Enugu State (2016).
▪ She won the Ikon Gallery Art Prize for Master’s Degree 2014. Birmingham, UK.
She was one of the 6 artists featured in the Rele Arts Foundation, Young Contemporaries exhibition held at the Rele Arts Gallery in Lagos, Nigeria. She expresses her ideas in various media including but not limited to clay, metal, wood, body filler and fiberglass. With her special interest in mental health, her artwork observes behavioral patterns and creates their symbolic movement. Currently, she teaches Sculpture at the Fine and Applied Arts Department, University of Jos. Plateau State.
Nzinga Bandida
Visual Artist/Filmmaker
Paris | Ivory Coast
Maureen Douabou is an Ivorian-French multidisciplinary artist born in Abidjan and currently based in Paris. She describes herself as a black woman with opinions and feelings and her works aim at exploring black womanhood(s) through the use of different formats and platforms. Her background in translation and interpretation allows her to communicate different object and concepts to diverse audiences and her work with fabrics, textiles and headwraps translates black women experiences in other art forms. She uses the form and function of headwraps and fabrics as well as installations, videos and short movies to explore, communicate and denounce issues that arise.
Adetona Omokanye
Photographer
Lagos | Nigeria
Adetona Omokanye is a graduate of University of Lagos with Masters degree in Marine Pollution and Management. He’s a documentary photographer based in Lagos, Nigeria.
His work navigates and positions at the fore-intertwined relationship between beauty, self-acceptance, politics and environmental pollution.
He attended Foundry Photojournalism Workshop (Vll Academy) In Kigali, Rwanda (2019).
He also attended the Native Creative Lab (2018). Adetona is a member of African Photojournalism Database (APJD), a joint project by the World Press Photo Foundation and Everyday Africa. His works have been published in, magazines and websites such as Getty images, Der Spiegel, Business day, Frankfurter Rundschau, Eater and Weser kurier. Recently , one of his Personal projects-Beyond 4ft 10Inch, won a Getty Images award (2019).
In the pursuit of his career as a story teller , he strongly believes that photography can light up darkness and expose ignorance if a project were properly documented.
Piwai
Singer/SongWriter/ Mbira Player & Percussionist
Richmond CA | Zimbabwe
Piwai’s chilling vocals and hypnotic sound have been described as spiritual nirvana. A captivating performer, she bends genres to seamlessly ow from jazz, reggae or folk to pure African rhythms, moving listeners to physically feel her music, creating a trance-like rhythm that balances consciousness.Piwai wows audiences across the globe with her soulful voice and genre-fusing melodies. Fondly known as the girl with the African thumb piano, the mbira, Piwai was born and raised in Zimbabwe. Her love of music is influenced by her multicultural Southern Africa and gospel exposure in early childhood. During and after college years in the US, Piwai trained as a jazz vocalist at the Jazz School of Berkeley. She’s studied with world-renowned vocalists such as Vernon Bush, Raz Kennedy, Maye Cavallaro, and Frankye Kelly. Piwai has since been under the tutelage of maestros and the incomparable percussionist, Yagbe Onilu, and conguero, Butch Haynes. Piwai collaborates regularly with Fantastic Negrito, playing percussion on his 2017 Grammy Award winning album “Last Days of Oakland"