Threewalls

Jorge Félix is an Afro-Boricua multidisciplinary artist, and curator based in Chicago. He became known in the city for his ‘Body Construction’ painting installations where he molded the canvas to create reliefs, sculptures, and installations. From an early age, Félix’s grandfather instills a passion for community organizing, and in Chicago, he found that the research of food culture could become a tool to ease community in conversations. Félix’s Sofrito Conversations welcome community leaders, elected officials, artists, and neighbors to make old fashion recipes of ‘sofrito’ at a round table while facilitating a storytelling conversation about cooking traditions. There Félix highlights a dialogue that celebrates cultural differences and commonalities among participants to create bonds among participants. Félix focuses his work on the Hermosa neighborhood where he is a 22-year resident but also addresses issues relevant to the northwest community of Chicago. Félix, a biracial gay man born in Puerto Rico, is particularly invested in addressing the racial divide between Latin@s and African Americans in northwest Chicago. Félix earned a Master of Fine Arts in painting and history from Bowling Green State University and a Master of Arts in Arts Administration from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

A.Martinez (she/her) is a poet, visual artist, mother, and organizer living in Chicago. Her work explores family, rituals, nature, and the body. Alyssa’s social practice involves participatory community gatherings including those for mothers in the arts. She also works as an arts administrator for music performance organizations.

Image description: A.Martinez, a mother with light brown skin and a short curly dark brown afro in a white short sleeved linen dress stands facing to the right in front of a white bed sheet backdrop. Her five year old, Asher, with light brown skin and upper back length curly dark brown hair with no shirt and light gray sweatpants stands behind her back and wraps his arms around her neck, where they hold hands in front of her chest. Their faces touch at the cheekbone. They both have their heads turned to look directly into the camera with pleasant semi-smiling faces, their skin glowing from the late afternoon June sunlight.

Photo by Chelsea Alexandra.

Abena Motaboli is a Basotho – Ghanian Interdisciplinary artist, educator, and writer based in Chicago. She grew up in Lesotho, Southern Africa before moving to the U.S where she obtained her bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts at Columbia College Chicago. Her practice is interdisciplinary, experimental, and deeply rooted in a love of land, nature, and storytelling through the plants.

Image description: Abena Motaboli stands in a wheat field in front of a lake wearing a yellow sweater and black pants. She smiles looking directly at the viewer with one hand outstretched touching the plants next to her. Photo was taken by Kristie Kahns for Sixty Inches From the Center.

AJ was born and raised in “D.C. proper,” and is currently based in Chicago using performance practices, sound, video, movement, theatre and writing to share experiences living in a Black body. AJ holds a Masters in Fine Arts from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and received a Bachelor of Arts with a minor in creative writing from the University of Maryland, College Park and has also studied at The New School. A.J. hopes that all the memories and histories that are said to have “too many Black people” are told and retold again.

Angel Bat Dawid is a Black American Traditional Music Composer, Improviser, Clarinetist, Pianist and Vinyl Addict. A sonic archaeologist gathering sounds and music from space, the heavens, the ether and beyond. Restoring peace, love and healing to the world using the most powerful tool imaginable — OMINI-VERSAL SOUND. Music is a language, you see, a universal language.-Sun Ra

An undisciplined creator. Amina Ross creates boundary-crossing works that embrace embodiment, imaging technologies, intimacy and collectivity in physical and digital spaces. Amina has exhibited work, spoken on panels and taught workshops at venues throughout the United States. Amina’s intention within a media-centering practice is to engage sensuality and sense-perception as modes of reclaiming the body. Amina is currently a 2018-2019 Artist-in-Residence at Arts & Public Life and the Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture at the University of Chicago. —
As an educator Amina is currently an adjunct lecturer in the Contemporary Practices department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and Co-lead artist of Teen Creative Agency at the Museum of Contemporary Art. As a curator and cultural organizer Amina is curator of ECLIPSING, a multi-media festival celebrating darkness. —

Khadijah Kysia, is a licensed acupuncturist, writer and scholar with four decades worth of experience navigating the world in a black femme body. Khadijah will share with us her (counter)narrative and strategies for cultivating internal power and moving through the world whilst actively healing herself and others. Khadijah’s narrative will be set alongside the sounds of Jared Brown, the self-proclaimed “high priest of sounds for the girls at night.”

J’Sun Howard is a master of movement, navigating the politics of desire both on and off stage J’Sun’s (counter)narrative will be set alongside the work of A.J. McClenon, a multimedia sound artist who blends archival sound bites and personal narrative that, in AJ’s own word “level hierarchies of truth”.

Multimedia Artist. Social practitioner. Musician.

Aquil (‘AQ’) Charlton uses his imagination to envision a more just world. As an electronic musician, he performs live improvisations and collaborates with other electronic musicians and visual artists to create immersive experiences.

Since founding Mobile Music Box in 2016, AQ teaches intergenerational groups how to make instruments from recycled materials to encourage more environmental consciousness — particularly in communities of color. Additionally, he frequently engages the public in live music-making.

A Bronzeville resident, AQ is a teaching artist in his community and father to a young son with a passion for youth development.