From November through January, we are using our project space as a residency program for artist-organizers. This is not WPA's first residence program -- in the 1980s we had a designated apartment and studio space designed by David Ireland. More recently, following our conversion to an artist-driven program model, we shared our space with three artist mothers and their children for Artist Mother Studio, which was organized by Amy Hughes Braden in 2018. During the COVID-19 pandemic, we are again using our headquarters as a residency to support artist-organized exchange and research until we can safely gather in-person.
We selected multidisciplinary artist and organizer Brittney Nicole Washington through an open call. During the residency, Brittney will use the space to research and build an historical timeline and visual anthology of Black and Indigenous Joy and Resistance in the United States. This timeline will exist as a physical installation, an online resource, and eventually, as a printed publication.
About the Artist-Organizer
Brittney Nicole Washington is a Southern queer Black artist, mama, doula, art therapist, strategist, and troublemaker. Her multidisciplinary work is grounded by the understandings that 1) our most important responsibility is dismantling the power arrangements that maintain oppression; 2) everyone has different points of entry into politicization and social justice movements; and 3) art is a powerful portal to healing, imagination, and movement for that purpose.
Brittney uses painting, illustration, and filmmaking to uplift BIPOC experiences and perspectives. Her work decolonizes ideas of normality and invites radical empathy across differences. As a racial justice strategist and cultural organizer, Brittney facilitates sessions that illuminate the historical events that shape our current experiences of racialized poverty, trauma, and disconnection. She organizes projects where folks can be brave, vulnerable, and imaginative about how to bend our world towards justice together. She also serves as a visual arts producer for justice groups such as Black Lives Matters DC, The People’s Demands DC, Service to Justice, and Movement Matters.
Date
November 17, 2020
