Connecting through creativity
How's your heart? When's the last time you stared out of a window and dreamt about revolution?
Loaded questions but that's how I'm showing up after spending the past week in the mountains of Western North Carolina. I was there to support and document a retreat for a statewide project. A portion of my personal zine collection was used for a cultural gallery walk, where 100+ people had the chance to look through zines about education justice, labor, feminism, racial justice, abolition, and more (because there's always more). I also got to host a zine breakout session, which was a lot of fun.
As soon as the gallery walk opened, I promised to give my copy of Abby Rocha's Naw Patrol zine to N, a four-year-old who accompanied his mom. From that point on, every couple of hours, I'd hear someone yelling my name and saying hi. He also made sure to remind me to not give the zine to anyone else. At the end of the two-day retreat, we held hands and talked about his upcoming first day of school. I packed up my zines and N left with a poster and his new zine, of course.
About 30 people joined the zine breakout. Most of them hadn't made a zine before and had no idea what they were. It didn't take more than a few minutes before folks started to rip and cut up magazines to create their own. Halfway through our time together, a few were teaching late arrivals how to fold their mini zines. Everyone left with a mini zine and a smile on their face despite initially coming into the room feeling worn from the long day.
"People want to feel seen" is a sentence that I've said and have heard countless times over the past few months. People are fighting and protecting each other and feeling incredibly burnt out. Hosting spaces for people to learn about zine making, storytelling, and movement history this summer has reminded me how beautiful it feels to be connected. To feel seen.
I wanted to share about last week because it has been 2 years since I published an essay called "Do I Have to Take Up Space to be Understood?" to explore my reluctance for visibility that's coupled with an never-ending desire to create and share with others.
"Do I Have to Take Up Space to be Understood?" is an essay that I revisit often to remember why I continue to nurture creativity. Here's a section that I love:
Sometimes it’s hard to believe that “I deserve to take up space” was an affirmation that I often wielded in my early 20s. I didn’t want to join the legions of Black women, femmes, and non-binary people whose multi-layered identities were diminished and erased even, or especially, as they gained popularity. At 22 years old, I tucked Alice Walker’s command close to me during this time: Be nobody’s darling.
After an ex said, “I know you,” more attentively than I’d ever experienced, I reverted to what I knew best: Making myself smaller and easier to hide. I was still carefully choosing my words, over-explaining my thoughts and opinions—as if I needed to justify their existence in the first place. How could he know me when I was reluctant to even know myself? I wrote furiously to figure myself out before he did. The relationship didn’t last long, but my endeavor into self-discovery continued.
Nowadays I don't mind being seen if it gives others the permission they need to try.
I'll perform this essay as part of Meet Me at the Plaza, a collaborative live show happening in September. Keep reading this newsletter to learn more about the show and what it's like to create with an old friend, as well as hear a sample from its music.
Wherever you are and however you are feeling, please know that there are people who see you and how you're showing up in this fight. Thank you for still being here.
With love & solidarity,
Sula Found
Behind the Scenes of Meet Me at the Plaza
Last week, musician Julian Brown and I chatted about our first collaborative project that will premiere in Chicago next month.
To guide our conversation, we answered the following questions:
- What show themes resonate with you the most and why?
- What does this show mean for us as individual artists and as a collaborative duo?
- How we influenced each other in our creative practices during this process?
- How do you trust what people are saying about your art instead of prioritizing what you think?
- What do we hope to achieve by sharing our art? Why a live show?
Visit Event Calendar
Check out the updated event calendar, which includes in-person events and workshops along with virtual co-working sessions. Bookmark this link to stay updated.
Upcoming events include a virtual co-working session on Sunday, August 30th at 1pm Central time. If you are in Illinois, check out Meet Me at the Plaza, a live music and storytelling show on Friday, September 18th at 6:30pm.
You can also follow the calendar directly on Luma, which I'm enjoying as an alternate to Eventbrite and Facebook.