The #blackgirlquarantine Pop-Up Exhibition + Sonic Artist Talk celebrates 100+ artworks curated for and by Black womxn during the COVID-19 quarantine. Featuring an intimate artist talk followed by live performances from Destiny Muhammad and the ladies of SOL Development (Brittany Tanner, SoLauren Adams, and Felicia Gangloff Bailey), this gathering makes room Black women to be heard through sacred storytelling, testimonial witnessing, and sonic healing arts. 

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This event is a preview of the blackwomxnhealing reunion exhibition series, an installation that celebrates everyday round the way Black feminist healing arts. Please register for Opening Night and spread the word. This family friendly event features free food, free fun, good vendors + good vibes.

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About the Exhibition

blackwomxnhealing is an intergenerational healing arts collective that hosts biennial exhibitions for and by Black women. In 2021, we curated #blackgirlquarantine: an exhibition of blackwomxnhealing in the wake of 2020 virtually due to COVID-19 quarantine. Our 2023 exhibition is an in-person installation of #blackgirlquarantine hosted at Agency Oakland. For more information on exhibition events, visit blackwomxnhealing.com/spring2023, and to view the virtual exhibition, visit blackwomxnhealing.com/blackgirlquarantine.

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Schedule

1:00-1:30pm Mix & Mingle, View the pop-up exhibition

1:30-3pm Welcome, Exhibition Introduction, Artist Talk

3-4pm Artist Performance featuring Destiny Muhammad, Brittany Tanner, SoLauren Adams, and Felicia Gangloff Bailey

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About the Artists

@dr.reelaviolette/ blackwomxnhealing.com/reelaviolette

reelaviolette botts-ward, PhD, is a homegirl, an artist, and a community curator from Philadelphia, PA. Currently a Postdoctoral Fellow with the REPAIR Project at UCSF, her research explores Black women's healing spaces in Oakland as radical sites of health care and spiritual well-being. As founder of blackwomxnhealing, ree curates healing circles, exhibitions, courses, and research for and by Black womxn. She remains invested in making her academic work accessible to community audiences, using art and poetry as tools of translation. Her first book, mourning my inner[blackgirl]child (Nomadic Press, 2021), uses poetics as praxis to explore embodied trauma, ancestral grief work, and spiritual healing. Her work has been featured with platforms like Elle Magazine, The Griot, and the NAACP, and supported by the UC Berkeley Arts Research Center, the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, and the Alliance for the Arts in Research Universities, among others. She received her PhD in African Diaspora Studies from the University of California, Berkeley, her MA in African American studies from UCLA, and her BA in Sociology and Anthropology from Spelman College. She has also taught courses in the African American Studies department at Merritt College and the University of California, Berkeley, and is currently teaching a course called The #BlackFeministHealingArts Communiversity in UCSF’s Medical Anthropology department. For more on ree’s work, visit blackwomxnhealing.com / @blackwomxnhealing / @dr.reelaviolette on instagram.​

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@harpistfromthehood / destinymuhammad.net

Destiny Muhammad is a Recording/ Performing Artist | Band Leader | Composer & Producer. Her genre Celtic to Coltrane is cool and eclectic with a feel of Jazz & storytelling to round out the sonic experience. Destiny has curated concerts for Grace Cathedral Christmas Concert Series, SFJAZZ Tribute to Jazz Harp Legend Alice Coltrane, S F Symphony SOUNDBOX Series featured guest for GRAMMY Winner Kanye West ‘Sunday Service’, shared the stage with Jazz Masters Marcus Shelby, Omar Sosa, Blue Note Artist Ambrose Akisemuire and Azar Lawrence to name a few. She has headlined The Healdsburg Jazz Festival, Sunday’s in the Redwoods Concert, Seattle’s Fest Sundiata ButcherTown Jazz Fest. Destiny is The Healdsburg Jazz Festival 2022 Artist in Residence Guest Workshop Presenter for Amateur Music Network. Destiny is Governor Emeritus and Educational Chair Emeritus of the Recording Academy, ASCAP Songwriter Awardee, California Entertainers Music Awards Female Jazz Artist of the Year Winner, SFJAZZ Teaching Artist, Bay Area Jazz and Blues Award Winner (BAJABA) and RaiseKarma Virtual Residency Alum.

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@brittctan/ thesongremedy.com

Brittany Tanner is a musical artist, mother and serial entrepreneur based in the Bay Area. All of her enterprises center the enrichment of community through healing arts. She is the founder of The Song Remedy, a collective of Black and Brown women-identified educators and facilitators cultivating sacred spaces for communities to heal from oppression individually, interpersonally and institutionally through rituals, song, affirmations work, critical consciousness development, and bearing witness to collective struggle and healing. Every session is intended to be accessible for community members, educators, caregivers, and families seeking social, emotional, and spiritual support to combat the spirit-murdering we experience ranging from the violence of carceral schooling, education organizing shaped by white supremacy culture, community violence exacerbated by systemic displacement, disinvestment, and incarceration, or the everyday indignities that BIPOC face navigating a society shaped by oppression. 

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Brittany is also a member of Emmy award winning group SOL Development, a hip-hop/soul/jazz ensemble and a founding artist of the powerful healing collective BE-IMAGINATIVE collective of artists, healers, and community leaders who are dedicated to healing our black and brown communities through multidimensional storytelling. She’s performed with the likes of  artists such as India Arie, opened for Monica, sung with Robert Glasper and D Smoke. She’s been highlighted in publications like KQED, Okay player, The Root, SF Chronicles and had appearances on the World Channel, MLK NOW Revolt TV and  curated multiple series of healing events. Through all of her endeavors, she uses her voice, her talents and her vision as a healing agent for herself, her family and her larger community.

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@solauren/ solaurenmusic.com

SoLauren Adams is an Emmy award winning artist from San Francisco, CA. She is a singer, songwriter, and producer, a proud graduate of Hampton University, and an even prouder Black native of San Francisco. She has seventeen years of experience teaching Music & Theater to students of all ages, and she recently released two solo albums in the summer of 2020. Her musical gifts shine and heal in her role as the Music & Arts Director at The Way Berkeley, and as a co-facilitator & member of Emmy Award winning collectives, SOL Development, & BE-IMAGINATIVE.

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Felicia Gangloff-Bailey is an Angel Mother, Author, and the cofounder of SOL Affirmations, a multi medium providing tools, experiences, and products for self-reflection and the exploration of grief as Love. A graduate of Howard University,  Felicia earned her PhD in Educational Psychology. Her research focused on racial socialization messages in hip-hop music and their relationship to African American college students racial identity and achievement motivation. Felicia is also a member of the hip hop, jazz, and soul ensemble, SOL Development and a member of BE-IMAGINATIVE Collective that supports Black and Brown communities through  multidimensional story telling of Mothers who have lost children to gun violence. She currently is a data collection and analysis collaborator with Digital Organizing Power-Building and Engagement (DOPE) Labs, and is the cohost of the twice AMBIE nominated podcast SOL Affirmations with Karega and Felicia on the Black Love Podcast Network. Her latest release is SOL Affirmations: A toolkit for Mothers investigating grief's process. She is from Sacramento, California, has a Bachelor's of Arts in Music Education from Hampton University.

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SOL DEVELOPMENT

This gathering features the Black women artists in SOL Development: Brittany Tanner, SoLauren Adams, and Felicia Gangloff-Bailey.

Sol Development is a hip-hop, jazz, and soul ensemble that uses music and media as mediums to transmit messages concerning the intersections of social justice, hope, and love, told from the perspectives of The Black Experience. Our work, The Sol of Black Folk, has made appearances nationally, however, its practice rests in the communities of Oakland,CA. It is the live soundtrack supporting the healing retreats of Mother’s who have lost children to gun violence, a collaborative work with BE-IMAGINATIVE. Our latest work has transcended into literature through the authorship of our release Sol Affirmations.

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This program is presented in partnership with UCSF REPAIR and blackwomxnhealing.

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