MAIA team and dramaturg Andre Anderson, holding up a proposed definition for Black Imagination: ‘To harmonise our imaginations, posturing it towards our world’s freedom’.
Credit: Third Eye photography

Space in the Black Imagination, 24th May - 15th July 2023

A Radical Imagination Lab exploring: How does the Black Imagination create portals and prototypes for sanctuary and communion?

When we envision a world towards liberation, it calls us to engage in the politics of space in ways that hold a structural analysis of power and oppression.

Within this analysis, MAIA seeks to centre, prioritise, safeguard and platform those most impacted by these systems of oppression, to rehearse transformative, liberatory possibilities into being. This is why we understand, invest in and support the capacity for Black imagination as a critical technology that helps us orient towards liberation.

For Space in the Black Imagination, our starting point was ABUELOS, a space MAIA is prototyping, grown intentionally from the Black imagination; and New Communities Inc, the first modern day community land trust and spatial framework birthed in the emancipatory imagination of African American families organising for secure access to land amidst the racial segregation of the United States. From here, we sought to understand what kinds of collective organising are appropriate and strategic for our times and generations to come.

Throughout the Lab, we worked with a number of Black artists, visionaries, researchers, builders and scholars to engage with the politics of space alongside us, to evolve the threads that are shaping ABUELOS into being. We also invited a number of ally practitioners to share tools and offer their expertise in ensuring the infrastructures we build are robust, dynamic, generational and resilient.

Collectively, we are trying to build the capacity that allows us to mobilise towards life-affirming infrastructures which are rooted in radical hospitality, the Black Imagination, regenerative economics and more-than-human accountabilities.

If you’d like to engage more with some of the thinking and work which informed the curation of the Lab, head here.

TALKS/WORKSHOPS

The Lab included a number of panels, talks and workshops:

‘Privatise the Mandem; Exploring Hood Futurism’ with Nabil Al-Kinani.
A workshop where as Hood Futurists, we reimagined the Block to serve the needs to the mandem.
‘Reparations’ with Leon Sealey-Huggins
Leon critically explored what it would really take to move towards reparative justice and repair, particularly in a time of climate crisis and ever-present colonial systems + structures.
‘The (Re)Writers Room’ with Tony Patrick
World-builder Tony Patrick facilitated a writers room where, using ABUELOS as a stimulus, we reimagined hospitality, ancestral spaces and community spaces, co-curating the artefacts, values and lexicon which would be needed to make them possible.
‘Nubia Way’ with James Thormod
A screening of ‘Nubia Way’ and Q&A with its co-producer James Thormod. ‘Nubia Way’ is a documentary which tells the story of an incredible Black-led self-build project in 1990s Lewisham. Watch it here.
‘Land; How We Organise’ with Melissa Mean, Jo White and Claude Hendrickson
A panel discussion and breakout workshops, where we explored why a co-operative land movement is essential in these times, and how we might organise for one in North Birmingham.

You can watch some of these below.

Watch back

RADICAL HOSPITALITY

As part of this, MAIA commissioned RADICAL HOSPITALITY, an online zine where we invited a number of artists, visionaries and dreamers to dance with us in the entanglements of radical hospitality and our co-existing visions of liberation.

radical hospitality

A group of people sitting round a table for a workshop.
Credit: Third Eye photography

A group of people arriving for an event, talking and greeting one another.
Credit: Third Eye photography

YARD YOUNGERS, 30th May - 2nd June 2023

MAIA curated a 4 day programme for 8-12 year olds to reimagine YARD - MAIA’s site of imagination. The Youngers spent the week as world-builders: from mutual aid games, to redesigning local areas and street names, to co-designing sites of sanctuary, the Youngers got to experiment, play and imagine a world in which they could thrive.

The Youngers exhibiting the sanctuary they designed. Above the front door reads ‘Welcome’ in rainbow colours.
Credit: Third Eye photography

The Youngers build a sanctuary. They have written on the walls: ‘The Everything Sanctuary’ and ‘safe and fun house’.
Credit: Third Eye photography

ART SCHOOL, 13th - 24th June

A radical, experimental art school, where for two weeks, YARD’s doors are open, and everybody gets to be an artist.

This time, we explored the brief ‘Liberated to the Bone: How can movement infrastructure centre the deep connections between our bodies, lands and histories, to support our capacities for healing?’

Each day, we had 2 rounds, with a prompt for each. During a round, we had 30 minutes to make something, and then we came back to share. Through embodied practice and intuitive decision-making, beautiful reflections and collaborations emerged.

We were honoured to have Reisz ‘Odd Priest’ Amos in residence as sonic collaborator, supporting folks to explore prompts through sound and music.

We were also blessed to be joined by Yonatan Tiruneh as filmmaker in residence. You can watch his film, a moving homage to YARD, here.

Folks sitting round the table at YARD, sharing a sculpture they have made during Art School.
Credit: Ayesha Jones photography

Two people in the YARD music studio, recording vocals at Art School.
Credit: Ayesha Jones photography

THE BLACK IMAGINATION FUND, 4th - 13th July

Space in the Black Imagination included the Black Imagination micro-fund, for local artists and practitioners to come and reimagine YARD as a site of sanctuary.

The recipients of the fund were multidisciplinary and their sanctuaries took many forms. From a radical rest workshop, to an evening of Black queer love poetry, to multimedia performances exploring poetry, healing + environmental crises, to an arts workshop for Black mamas and their babies.

- Sea Osuji
- Marshea Makosa
- Adjei Sun
- Black Mama’s Birth Village