Storytelling with Saundra Gilliard and On Blackness: Artist Talks and Panel
Please join us on Saturday, April 13th from 1:30-5:30 PM for a hybrid cultural sharing artist talks, panel, and storytelling event in conjunction with the exhibition Dolls, Idols, and Ideals. Artists Kimberly Camp and Emilio Maldonado are joined by Storyteller Saundra Gilliard.
The afternoon will open with a performance by Saundra Gilliard who will weave together a collection of stories from West Africa, Black America, and the Caribbean, which have inspired the artists in Dolls, Idols, and Ideals. These stories will help audiences better understand the work and the conversations within. Doors will open at 1:30 PM, and the performance will start at 2 PM.
We will continue with two mini-artist talks from Kimberly Camp and Emilio Maldonado, the featured artists of Dolls, Idols, and Ideals. After a short introduction, Kimberly and Emilio will be joined by guest moderator Erlin Geffrard to discuss Blackness in America.
About our Guests:
Saundra Gilliard is a nationally recognized Storyteller and Personal Transformation Leader. For the past 20 years, her stage performances and training “playshops” have promoted and cultivated Sacred Feminine Practices and techniques. Saundra is the founder of Femininely Free!, and the current co-chair of the Philadelphia Folklore Project.
Dolls, Idols, and Ideals features Kimberly Camp and Emilio Maldonado, two Black artists investigating their identity, label, lineage, and how they create their own power while stranded in a “new world.” Camp and Maldonado artists use symbols - made or found - that reference their ancestry and spirituality. Rather than working from a notion of unchanging traditions, they engage with aesthetics and amalgamated cultural practices that have been adapted in order to survive. Each artist finds strength, magic, and power in these shapeshifting, resilient elements in full embrace and exploration of their individual and shared heritages.
