Category: Racial Justice

http://www.centerartsdesign.org/fellows

Joseph Kamaru, aka KMRU, Research Fellow, is a sound artist and experimental ambient musician, raised in Nairobi, Kenya, and currently based in Berlin where he is a student at Universität der Künste Berlin for sound Studies and Sonic Arts Master’s Program. His works deal with the discourse of field recording, improvisation, noise, machine learning, and radio art. He has earned international acclaim from his in far-flung locales as well as his ‘ambient’ recordings, including his album Peel released on Editions Mego, sweeping 2020 end year lists from Pitchfork, RA, DJ Mag, Bandcamp to Boomkat, and many more. KMRU has presented his works in NyegeNyege Festival in Jinja, GAMMA in St. Petersburg, Mutek Montreal, CTM Festival in Berlin, and unsound, to name the most notable.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esther_Charlestin

Esther Charlestin (born 1990)^[1] is an American educator and businesswoman,^[2] serving as the chair of the Vermont Commission on Women.^[3][4] A first-generation Haitian American,^[5] Charlestin was the Democratic nominee in the 2024 Vermont gubernatorial election.^[6]

Claudette Gacuti (b. Burundi) makes objects for a world whose ground will not settle. She conflates scales—geologic, domestic, psychological—to study and adapt to earthly instability. Fear and fantasy cohabit in her forms. Gacuti holds an MS in architecture from the University of Minnesota and an MFA in sculpture from the Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts at Bard College. Gacuti is also showing new work in “Taylor Davis Selects: Invisible Ground of Sympathy,” on view at the ICA Boston through January 7, 2024.

https://www.blackjewishliberation.org

We are a collective of Black Jews based in the United States who amplify our voices and uplift our cultural and political organizing.

Wambui Kamiru Collymore is a visual artist who mainly creates installations. She currently works on themes of decoloniality, womanhood, memory and history and more recently, online dis-identity. Wambui’s work incorporates everyday objects and the use of at least three senses of perception. Her work has been exhibited in Kenya, South Africa, Poland, Germany and Denmark. She currently lives and works in Nairobi, Kenya.

Born and raised in Kenya, Wambui has been developing artwork around the themes of decoloniality, identity and independence in Africa. Originally a painter, Wambui now expresses her work through installation.

Wambui holds an MSc. in African Studies with a focus on Violence, History and Memory from the University of Oxford. She lives and works in Nairobi.

Wambui Kamiru Collymore is the founder of The Art Space, an online art  gallery.

https://www.npr.org/2026/07/28/nx-s1-5910539/betye-saar-dead

The artist Betye Saar has died. Saar made three-dimensional art with found objects, tackling stereotypes about Black identity and women. Her longtime gallery, Roberts Projects in Los Angeles, said she died in her sleep in Los Angeles on Sunday — just days shy of her 100th birthday.

https://thecentergalleries.org/dr-lisa-brock

Dr. Brock was born and raised in Glendale, Ohio and holds a BA in history from Howard University and a doctorate in history from Northwestern University. She has spent most of her life involved in social justice activism and higher education. She served as chair of the Humanities, History, and Social Sciences department at Columbia College Chicago and as the founding Academic Director of the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership at Kalamazoo College, Michigan. She currently works as a JEDI (Justice, Equity, Diversity & Inclusion) consultant, and continues her activism in several causes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marlon_James_(novelist)

Marlon James (born 24 November 1970^[1]) is a Jamaican writer. He is the author of five novels: John Crow’s Devil (2005), The Book of Night Women (2009), A Brief History of Seven Killings (2014), which won him the 2015 Man Booker Prize, Black Leopard, Red Wolf (2019), and Moon Witch, Spider King (2022). He also wrote the limited television series Get Millie Black.

Now living in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States, James teaches literature at Macalester College in Saint Paul, Minnesota.^[2][3] He is also a faculty lecturer at St. Francis College‘s Low Residency MFA in Creative Writing.^[4]

Brittany Harris (she/her) is a Brooklyn-based multi-instrumentalist and composer. Current Role at WAM: cellist in hollow roots. Selected Performance Experience Elsewhere: Brittany has performed in many major venues such as Saturday Night Live with Shawn Mendez, The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon with Liam Gallager, appearances at Carnegie Hall performing with Busta Rhymes and the Revive Band, also with The Manhattan Symphonie, The Apollo Theatre with the Soul Science Lab, and appearances at The Lincoln Center for The Notorious B.I.G. Tribute, to name a few. She also performs with her own band as a singer, songwriter, cellist, and electric bassist, performing at multiple venues around NYC. Current Sound Design Projects: Currently Brittany works as a composer and sound designer for her and her partner, Mellissa Phillips – Oribhabor, podcast “Good Night Black Child”. A podcast, creating a safe space for all children and the young at heart, but specifically focusing on original and folk bedtime stories, affirmations, and meditations, of the black and brown diaspora.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Parker_(musician)

Jeff Parker (born April 4, 1967) is an American guitarist and composer based in Los Angeles.^[1][2][3]

Born in Connecticut and raised in Hampton, Virginia, Parker is best known as an experimental musician, working with jazz, electronic, rock, and improvisational groups. Parker studied at Berklee College of Music and then moved to Chicago in 1991.^[4]