HOPE AGAINST HOPE: A woman-led weekend of parade, community, poetry, song, and food
HOPE AGAINST HOPE was a parade and gathering of feminist poets, activists, musicians and artists to raise questions about how woman activist histories can inform radical presents.
Catalyzed by artist Ines Doujak’s decades-spanning practice which stages interventions into socially prescribed boundaries. HOPE AGAINST HOPE is a parade convened to remember, honor, and express solidarity with women land defenders from around the world. The artist's works, currently on display in CARA's galleries, transformed into props for the parade, bringing together bodies in public space to ask: How will you show up for your role as a member of the collective body? When we gather in hope, what worlds are born?
SATURDAY, MAY 4, 2-5PM: PARADE WITH NYC AIDS MEMORIAL
The weekend began with a parade on May 4, co-presented by CARA and New York City AIDS Memorial. Weaving together pasts and futures of hope, participants form a chorus of voices celebrating the history, present and future of women/trans/femme-led activism.
The parade opened at CARA with an invocation by poet Pamela Sneed, who read work that honors the lives lost to AIDS. Her words led us into the streets, guided by the heart-beat of the parade: the percussion of Black-led, Afro Brazilian, all-women musical troupe Batalá New York. Joined by BRUJAS, a New York-based experimental union and skate collective, we processed towards St. Vincent’s Triangle (the New York City AIDS Memorial), which acted as a space for performances and gathering. At the memorial The Blacksmiths, a coalition of artists and organizers committed to using the arts to support direct action and civic engagement in the service of Black liberation and equity, organized a performance by Jordyn Davis, Candice Hoyes, Val Jeanty, Lessie Vonner, and Nikara Warren, performed with vibraphone, trumpet, vocals, and percussion. Artist and writer Christen Clifford, whose work centers reproductive justice and organizing against gender-based violence, performed. The afternoon was book-ended by a final offering from Sneed.
The New York City AIDS Memorial is a community site of remembrance whose mission is to honor the more than 110,000 New Yorkers who have died of AIDS-related causes and to acknowledge the contributions of caregivers and activists who mobilized to provide care and fight discrimination, ultimately transforming both the epidemic. As a nonprofit organization, the Memorial aims to inspire and empower diverse audiences, including current and future activists and people living with HIV, to continue the mission to end the epidemic while embracing lessons from the past four decades. This is accomplished by maintaining an architecturally significant monument and public park in New York City’s West Village and presenting free, public, community-centered programming, including comprehensive visual and performing arts offerings.
Pamela Sneed is a New York-based poet, performer and visual artist. She is the author of Imagine Being More Afraid of Freedom Than Slavery, KONG and Other Works, Sweet Dreams and Funeral Diva published by City Lights in Oct 2020. Funeral Diva was featured in the New York Times, Publishers Weekly, Lit Hub, Art Net and more. Funeral Diva won the 2021 Lambda Lesbian Poetry Award and recommended by The New York Times alongside Barack Obama’s memoir. Her visual work was featured at Leslie Lohman Museum, The Ford Foundation, Kates-Ferris and currently at The Lumber Room in Portland. In 2022, she had a solo show at Laurel Gitlen Gallery. In March 2023, she premiered a solo performance A Tribute To Big Mama Thorton which broke a record at the Armory for the earliest a performance ever sold out. She presented a production of A Tribute to Big Mama Thorton at Joe's Pub in March 2024.
Batalá New York is the premier all-women, Black-led, percussion ensemble activating partnerships, community building, and cultural awareness through high-energy performances of Afro-Brazilian music and dance. They transform images of women by presenting a loud, fearless, diverse and resilient community of female drummers performing all over the New York region in concert halls, at community centers, in parks and gardens, on the streets, at protests, and at renowned cultural institutions. Batalá New York is part of a global arts project of over thirty bands playing Afro-Brazilian music with percussive instruments and costumes hailing from Salvador de Bahia, in northeast Brazil. They promote Afro-Brazilian culture as the product of Black resistance, and promote and collaborate with a network of Afro-Brazilian artists in Bahia, in New York, and around the globe.
BRUJAS is a free-form, autonomous skate collective founded in 2014 in NYC with no rules applied. Brujas World Syndicate is a labor union for cultural producers with a global membership. BWS is working to provide RESOURCES to cultural producers and skateboarders worldwide, and especially BRUJAS! BWS is growing a deeper, emergent, lateral & decentralized power model providing us with an alternative to selling out or growing unethically. We have developed a specific method that involves design, performance, community activation, coalition building, and skating.
Christen Clifford is a multidisciplinary feminist artist, writer, curator, filmmaker, and mother. Her first risograph artbook, BabyLove, was acquired by the Thomas J. Watson Library of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The Blacksmiths are a coalition of artists, curators, culture producers, and organizers committed to using the arts to support direct action and civic engagement in the service of Black liberation and equity. Their May 4 performance will feature: Jordyn Davis, Val Jeanty, Candice Hoyes, Lessie Vonner, and Nikara Warren.
Jordyn Davis is a ground-breaking, multi-talented, and award-winning bassist, composer, singer-songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist. She is the first African-American woman to receive a Bachelor's Degree in Music Composition from Michigan State University and the first Michigan State student to receive a Bachelor's Degree in Music Composition and Jazz Studies concurrently. Davis has also completed a Masters's Degree in Jazz Studies at Michigan State University and worked as a graduate teaching assistant. She recently relocated to Brooklyn, NY and was named one of two inaugural Jazz Leader Fellowship recipients by the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music. Davis has worked on the Tony-Winning Broadway Musical New York, New York: A new musical and collaborated with Craig Harris & the contemporary dance company Urban Bush Women. Her work spans various musical styles and has been featured on the PBS Limited Series Music for Social Justice. Davis has also worked with renowned ensembles and institutions and collaborated with several notable musicians. She leads her own band/ensemble called Composetheway and has released an EP titled Connections in 2017. Additionally, Davis is passionate about teaching and mentoring young musicians, working with organizations such as the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Girls Rock Detroit, and Science Gallery. She is a shining light in the music industry and will continue to inspire the next generation of musicians.
Val Jeanty also known as Val-Inc is a Haitian Afrofuturist, drummer, turntablist, and professor at Berklee College of Music. Jeanty is a pioneer of the electronic music sub-genre called Afro- Electronica or Vodou-Electro, incorporating Haitian Folkloric rhythms with digital instrumentations by synergistically combining acoustics with electronics and the archaic with the postmodern. Jeanty’s Afro-Electronica performances include the Whitney Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, and internationally at the Venice Biennale in Italy and the House of the World’s Cultures Museum in Berlin. Jeanty has worked with a diverse group of artists including Geri Allen, Anthony Braxton and SunRa’s drummer, Francisco Mora Catlett. Jeanty is the recipient of various grants and fellowships including the 2017 Van Lier Grant, the NYSCA/Roulette 2019 Residency, the 2022 NYU/CBA Toulmin and the 2024 United States Artists Fellowship.
Candice Hoyes is an artist of "chill-inducing range" (Vogue) across genre, medium, and style. Her music was featured in Carnegie Hall's 2022 Timeline of African American Music, distinguished for "her scholarship on such luminaries of African American cultural history represent[ing] a noticeable departure from the usual practice of isolating creativity and critical analysis, and the textures of her sound exemplify Afrofuturism as well." Candice is currently a 2022 MAP Fund recipient, and recently, a 2021 Woodshed Network Women in Jazz Fellow and 2020 NYC Women's Fund grantee. Her recent performances include Carnegie Hall, Detroit Symphony, Springfield Symphony (OH), Jazz at Lincoln Center, Caramoor, NYC JazzFest, and Blue Note. As an activist, she collaborates with the Feminist Press, Well-Read Black Girl, Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights in Law, Harlem Arts Alliance, Women in Music, and numerous grassroots organizations. She has produced her feminist performance lecture series for Jazz at Lincoln Center and CUNY for three consecutive seasons. Candice has been published by Shondaland, Columbia Journal of Gender and Law, and the Los Angeles Review of Books, and spoken and performed at TED HQ. Candice is an honors graduate of Harvard University, Columbia Law School, and a lecturer at Jazz at Lincoln Center. Candice releases her experimental jazz album, "Nite Bjuti" (pronounced night beauty) on July 28, 2023, and the first single, with video directed by Candice, "Mood (Liberation Walk)" is now available everywhere you listen.
Lessie Vonner is a performer, trumpeter, and educator based in the New York Metropolitan area. Hailing from Grand Prairie, Texas, Lessie’s love of music began at an early age. Her passion encouraged her to pursue music education at the renowned Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts in Dallas and the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music in New York City. Having developed a skillset and admiration for many different genres of music, Lessie currently performs in music scenes across the world with some of music’s biggest names including Beyoncé, Jay-Z, Janelle Monae, Lizzo, Jennifer Hudson, Ari Lennox, the Fugees, Jon Batiste and more. Lessie has also received Grammy recognition for her participation on Beyoncé's award-winning music film “Homecoming”, as well as for her work on The Carters’ award-winning “Everything Is Love” album. Locally, she can be seen performing frequently with her own group, the Lessie Vonner Quartet, in various jazz venues throughout New York City.
Nikara Warren is a Vibraphonist, composer, arranger, and educator, and a true Brooklynite. Born and bred in the eclectic and electric enclave, her debut album ‘NIKARA presents…Black Wall Street’ represents a convergence of Nikara’s personal, cultural, familial, and musical journeys. Here, she explores abstract sound-collage, hip-hop, jazz, neo-soul, Afro-Latino and Afro-Caribbean rhythms, and more. Music critic Kira Grunenberg states, “Nikara Presents Black Wall Street doesn’t project its versatility and creative range through scholarly jazz arrangements or covers chasing perfectionism. Instead, it offers original music converged around a stylistically fluid foundation.” Granddaughter of world-renowned jazz pianist Kenny Barron, Warren has graced many stages with her 7-piece band, including The Kennedy Center, SFJazz, Winter Jazz Fest, ClasiJazz Spain. She has shared the stage with world renowned musicians like John Pattitucci, Kenny Barron, Tia Fuller, Steve Wilson, Jeff 'Tain' Watts and many more. Nikara is also a dedicated educator, who has spent 10+ years as a band director and lecturer. Nikara currently directs the Jazz and Lincoln Center Middle School Jazz Academy Brooklyn band, and ensembles at Jazz House Kids, under the direction of Christian McBride.
Kinky Taco, a Black-owned food truck prides itself on authentically prepared quality ingredients. Building upon this experience, we showcase soulful African American flavors with bursting blends of Cajun and blackening spices, while infusing a variety of traditional Mexican peppers. The ‘Kinky’ in our name celebrates kinky hair while using a play on words to add tongue-in-cheek humor for taco truck fun. Our mission is to celebrate our heritage while delivering a delicious, convenient, and affordable experience to our community.
SUNDAY, MAY 5: TALKS AND PERFORMANCES AT CARA
Sunday, May 5 continued the spirit of the prior day’s parade, drawing in artists and educators for reflections on praxis, performance, and organizing. CARA’s Spring show artists Ines Doujak and Paloma Contreras Lomas were in conversation with the exhibition’s curator and CARA’s Executive Director and Chief Curator Manuela Moscoso. This first public exchange between the artists delved into their intimate, political practices. Complementing the artistic dialogue, feminist academics and activists Nimmi Gowrinathan and Loretta Ross spoke about their work across institutions and human rights movements. Both Gowrinathan and Ross engage in scholarship that informs organizing around women’s political identities, reproductive justice, and structural violence. The day also featured a performance with music, poetry, and live illustratio by This Time’s Quartet–Huda Asfour (Oud/Song), Farah Barqawi (Poet), Tracy Chahwan (Illustrator), Elsa Saade (Song).
Paloma Contreras Lomas (b. Mexico City, 1991) began her career of Visual Arts at the "National School of Painting, Sculpture and Engraving, La Esmeralda" (2011-2015) shortly after, she joined the multidisciplinary collective Biquini Wax EPS (2016-2022). The work of Contreras Lomas extends to different media such as video, writing, cinema, drawing and performance, as well as collective production parallel to his personal research. Her work explores different vestiges of masculinized Mexican politics, seeking to flee from pamphleteering tactics, using expanded political caricature as a means of production and thought. Her work has been shown at Palais de Tokyo; FRAC Centre Orléans; and Museo Tamayo. She has been a recipient of national scholarships such as the National Fund for Culture and the Arts in the Young Creators (FONCA) and international branches such as the Prince Generation Next Generation Grantee Scholarship and Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation (2019-2020). She is represented in Mexico City by PequodCo and by Galeria Agustina Ferreyra abroad. She lives and works in Mexico City.
Ines Doujak lives and works in Vienna, Austria. Doujak’s multidisciplinary practice spans across photography, performance, film and installation. She is working on deconstructing the political implications of sexist and racist stereotypes. Drawing on the tradition of carnival, masquerade and motifs from cultural history, she uncovers exploitative structures and inequalities in society, often in relation to colonial histories. Her research into the textile industry has resulted in numerous works concerning gender, class and cultural conflicts related to the global production, trade and distribution of fashion and textiles. Exhibitions include Kunsthalle, Vienna (2021); Bergen Assembly, Norway (2019); Kochi-Muziris Biennale, India (2018); Dhaka Art Summit, Bangladesh (2018); Para Site, Hong Kong (2018); São Paulo Biennal (2014); documenta 12, Kassel (2007); and Secession, Vienna (2002).
Dr. Nimmi Gowrinathan is an activist, writer, and scholar and founder of the Politics of Sexual Violence Initiative, a global project to mobilize around the political impact of sexual violence. She is the Publisher of Adi Magazine, and the creator of the Female Fighter Series at Guernica Magazine. Described by Valerial Luiselli as proof of a "political imagination like no other", her book, De Armas Tomar: Por qué las mujeres eligen la violencia (Sexto Piso 2023)/ Radicalizing Her (Beacon Press 2021), examines the complex politics of the female fighter. Her political essays, which have appeared in Harper's Magazine, Freeman's Journal, McSweeney's Quarterly, Guernica Magazine, and Foreign Affairs, among others have been described as "searing in a search for answers" (Publisher's Weekly).
Tracy Chahwan is an illustrator and designer from Lebanon. She started her career in Beirut, producing street art and posters for local independent music venues like the Beirut Groove Collective, and working with the Samandal and zeez comics collective publishing experimental comics and anthologies. In 2018, she published her first graphic novel Beirut Bloody Beirut, a story of two girls lost in the Beiruti night. After the Lebanese revolution in October 2019, she turned to journalistic comics, collaborating in books such as Guantanamo Voices and Where to Marie? Stories of Feminisms in Lebanon. Tracy’s work is marked by the radical and collaborative energy of the artistic scene in Beirut, where she worked actively the past years before she moved to the U.S. in 2019.
Farah Barqawi is a Palestinian author, performer, educator, and a feminist organizer. Her poetry and essays have appeared in multiple languages on online platforms and in multiple anthologies. In 2019, She produced and hosted a season of the Arabic podcast Eib (Shame). She wrote and performed her solo piece, “Baba, Come to Me”. She is the co-founder of two feminist projects: Wiki Gender and The Uprising of Women in the Arab World. She teaches Intro to Creative Writing for undergrads at New York University, where she is also a candidate for an MFA in Nonfiction Creative Writing.
Huda Asfour is a firm believer in transcending boundaries, evident in her roles as a musician and educator. Her musical journey began early in conservatories in Tunisia and Palestine, culminating in collaborations worldwide. With two studio albums, "Mars... Back and Forth" (2011) and "Kouni" (2018), to her credit, Huda has also composed music for film and multimedia projects, and has collaborated and featured with musicians internationally. Currently, she's delving into the art of improvisation, with a keen focus on the intricate nuances of Arabic musical aesthetics and its interplay with language.
Elsa Saade is a multidisciplinary artist and political mobilizer. Over the last decade, she has been a musician, puppeteer and street performer with several political theaters including Bread and Puppet Theater and Redwing Blackbird Theater. She has also been a grant maker, fundraiser and program strategist for feminist funds and grassroots movements, such as Urgent Action Fund and Palestine Heirloom Seed Library. She bridges her practice with her lived experience in Lebanon and as an immigrant in New York City. When performing, obsessed with grief and turmoil embedded in folk songs and traditions of Bilad Al Sham and beyond, Elsa wants her music to serve as a doula of moments around metaphorical birth and death.
Loretta J. Ross is a Professor at Smith College in the Program for the Study of Women and Gender where she teaches courses on white supremacy, human rights, and Calling In the Call Out culture. Loretta also is a recipient of a MacArthur Fellow, Class of 2022, for her work as an advocate of Reproductive Justice and Human Rights. Loretta was the National Coordinator of the SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective (2005-2012) and co-created the theory of Reproductive Justice. Loretta was National Co-Director of April 25, 2004, March for Women’s Lives in Washington D.C., the largest protest march in U.S. history at that time. She founded the National Center for Human Rights Education (NCHRE) in Atlanta, Georgia, launched the Women of Color Program for the National Organization for Women (NOW), and was the national program director of the National Black Women’s Health Project. One of the first African American women to direct a rape crisis center, Loretta was the third Executive Director of the D.C. Rape Crisis Center.
Makina Café is an Ethiopian/Eritrean eatery that focuses in expanding the culinary and cultural values of Ethiopia/Eritrea in the United States and beyond through food education, media and community engagement.
HOPE AGAINST HOPE
A woman-led weekend of parade, community, poetry, song,
Batalá New York, BRUJAS, Christen Clifford, Kinky Taco, Pamela Sneed, The Blacksmiths Present: Jordyn Davis, Candice Hoyes, Val Jeanty, Lessie Vonner, and Nikara Warren, Paloma Contreras Lomas, Ines Doujak, Nimmi Gowrinathan, Makina Café, This Time's Quartet and Loretta Ross.
Images by Elodie Adam.
