JULIAN's Artist in Residence

The Art of Freedom

Makeba “KEEBS” Rainey
  •  Aretha Franklin
  •  Aretha Franklin
  • Langston
  •  KEEBS
  • Keebs
  • MLK
  •  Aretha Franklin
paper

“Art is a pathway to freedom. For oppressed people, for all people, it can be the first step to actualize what you desire in this lifetime.”

President Obama

Makeba's Biography

My art practice centers marginalized voices within the Black community to provide a fuller, more nuanced view of the whole community and empower individuals by giving them autonomy over how their stories are told thus providing alternative potentialities for Black Liberation.

I create digital collage portraits that incorporate Ankara prints and use social media as an archiving medium/tool. My creative practice focuses on the transformative healing power within community building.

Black lives matter

My artwork incorporates themes of self-determination, creative problem-solving, cooperative economics,

and restorative justice as seen in social movements such as the Black Arts Movement of the 60s/70s and the more recent BLM movement. I create bonds with the larger Black community by being in conversation with the members of my web-based Black Artist collective and by curating community-led art exhibitions and programming at my home gallery. It is through the collective excavation and activation of the ancestral knowledge rooted in our bodies that we can heal ourselves from intergenerational trauma and live in our purpose.

Movement food

Coined by Candace Parrish, Ph.D., the founder of Yellow Plate Vegan, Movement food is…

Each month, this section features a new movement food recipe by Yellow Plate Vegan. This month’s recipe is…

“Food is an important lens onto the civil rights movement. One of the central issues of the movement was the right to eat in places that served the public. This battle led to the lunch counter sit-ins, which became embattled, contested places.” Marcie Cohen Ferris

Our ancestors ate specific ingredients to help them reach their goals in this fight. Those ingredients are what we call Movement Food. JULIAN and Yellow Plate Vegan are partnering to bring you the nourishment you need for your body while you carry out the calling of your soul.

“Our bodies are the vessels for this work. Movement food nourishes the warrior in this fight.”

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