ARTIST TALK: APRIL BEY

Join Art + Practice on November 8 for a talk with Bahamian raised, LA-based multidisciplinary artist and educator April Bey. Bey will discuss the ideas addressed in her Made in Space series, which explores female and queer afrofuturistic millennial entrepreneurialism via social media and the Internet. Blerdy in nature, juxtapositions of Star Trek and hip-hop culture also manifest in this series. Looking to the future acts as a therapeutic excretory practice in dealing with current day issues around race and discrimination globally. She will touch on the British colonization of West Africa and The Bahamas in comparison to the current Chinese colonization of black countries.

This work is a focus but is part of a generalized exploration of the actual resilience of women as they navigate through high-impact experiences of the body, psyche and demands of womanhood. There’s an ironic hypocrisy in the expectations of women and specifically black women to be sovereign and robust while at the same time inept and emotionally weak/unpredictable when leadership roles are sought.