Collective Creativity

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A publication created by Collective Creativity, which came out of a workshop and lecture at Nottingham Contemporary; discussing race and politics in art schools today.

A downloadable and shareable link for our published toolkit on how to survive art school as an artist of colour today. Please share in your networks with those you think will benefit. To obtain a hard reference copy for your school, library or centre please send us an email to [email protected] (Link also here - Surviving Art School an Artists of Colour Toolkit - CC)

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Performing ‘Professionality’ - The politics of getting paid (AKA BBHMM)

Performing ‘Professionality’ - The politics of getting paid (AKA BBHMM) 15th April 4pm Venue TBA Collective Creativity is setting out a session to discuss the various methods QTIPOC artists manoeuvre their work in and out of Institutions and DIY spaces in order to negotiate surviving as artists and critiquing the meanings of success and marginality. 

In performing ‘proffessionality’ we ask what does it mean to be a ‘Professional’ artist, how do we overcome the obstacles of getting paid, tackling classism and wider struggles in asking for renumeration for QTIPOC artistic capital and labours? How is our art compromised in gaining recognition as a professional, yet our work placed and celebrated for being on the margins? Who gets to be ‘unprofessional’ and how do we challenge the ways many artists are expected to work for free yet sustain a practice in London?

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Professionality

15th April 4pm Venue TBA We’ll be discussing the two articles below:

http://momus.ca/how-to-be-an-unprofessional-artist/

"Unprofessional most literally means “below or contrary to the standards of a paid occupation.” Who makes the standards? Is everyone paid? Fairly? Is being an artist a job or something else? Who sets these standards? Do you wish to be standardized? Art and success. So easy to cocktail those two words together into “professionalism.” Pull up a famous artist’s CV and work from the beginning. Does success look like a sculpture plunked outside the Palace at Versaille? Is it a biennial, a prize, a blue-chip dealer? Is it the cover of a magazine, a thick, chunky retrospective catalogue? Even more evasive things just glanced, the luxury sedan like a bullet, shiny and hard, that the aging photographer bought after he dumped his smallish gallery and long-term partner, for a bigger dealer and a younger girlfriend, shiny and hard as his car; or perhaps, the off-hand mention of a domestic servant, a personal chef, the third nanny, the smallest chink in the opacity of wealth, so very far from the roaches scurrying in your kitchen sink and the fact that you’ve eaten nothing but mushed pumpkin and cigarettes for a month." https://yalinidream.wordpress.com/2014/06/17/this-step-on-the-path-an-artist-asks/" "Yet, I know too many generous accomplished independent working artists contributing to justice movements who have been performing, painting, filming, writing, composing, creating over decades, who struggle to make even $15,000 a year. I also know too many artists who remain tied to day jobs that mute their light because there is no way they could take care of their child or mother or self on what they would make from their art. These artists have had films screened at the Angelika, edited anthologies, presented at numerous Ivy League universities, been on HBO, been on the cover of magazines, performed at Lincoln Center, exhibited at high end galleries, have thousands of youTube hits, shared stages with legends, and rejected invitations to the White House. Despite achieving high cultural capital, many artists find themselves not receiving due financial compensation for their labor. In New York City one bedroom apartments rent for $2666 a month on average and two bedroom apartment rents average $3331. It remains one of the most competitive cities for the arts. Many acclaimed independent artists struggle to keep rooftops over their heads and food on the table. All the while maintaining the bravado, divadom and allure of success necessary to score the next decently paid gig."

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'Navigating QT*IPOC Emerging Practice: an open conversation with Collective Creativity and Darkmatter' hosted by Goldsmiths University

June 11 2015: 2-4pm at the Women's Art Library (Rutherford Building), Goldsmiths Uni (wheelchair accessible)

For this session Janani Balasubramanian and Alok Maid Venon, from Darkmatter, will be joining us for a cross-cultural conversation about navigating our practices as QT*IPOC artists/creatives.

We will focus on issues such as:

radicality and politics/ negotiating institutions/ activism and social justice/ opportunity and oppression/ the kinds of work we make and any other issues we face in creating them.

How do our politics affect the work we make?

How does our work link to our/community activism?

How do we negotiate institutions as (political) artists of colour?

Collective Creativity: critical reflections into QTIPOC creative practice is a space that is explicitly inclusive of, and created for and by, people of different sexualities AND genders by and for people of colour (PoC). We intentionally share space and ideas in an informal non-hierarchal group roundtable setting, to reflect on creative practices that inspire, interest or provoke us and/or our practice. We provide a participatory space for folks who wish to critically discuss the issues they face in making work.

This session is open to all self defining QT*IPOCs* by *booking only* via [email protected]. Please email us your name, affiliation (goldsmiths student or non-Goldsmiths student) and any requirements you may have. (The capacity of this event is 30 so booking will be on a first come basis. Due to popularity of this event, please make sure to book only if you will definately attend.

[Important note: This event is specifically for qtipoc creatives wanting to actively participate in conversation around the issues highlighted. Another event to watch Dark Matter perform as an audience as part of the 'It Gets Bitter Tour' is later at 6pm at Goldsmiths which you are welcome to attend. https://www.facebook.com/events/1446692562312201/]

This event was made possible by the Goldsmiths’ Centre for Feminist Research and Departments of Media and Communications, Centre for Cultural Studies and Sociology. Thanks go to Sara Ahmed,  Ego Ahaiwe, Emma Marie Rodgers, Althea Greenan and Linda Stupart as well as Janani Balasubramanian and Alok Maid Venon from Dark matter Rage for their participation.

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* [This is including, but not limited to  Intersex, Bisexual, Transgender, Lesbian, Gay, Queer, Gender-Queer, Gender-Variant or non conforming, Undefined, Questioning, and Exploring persons) who are descended (through one or more parents) anywhere in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Indigenous peoples of Australasia, the Americas, the Islands of the Atlantic, Indian Pacific, and Roma Sinti (and) Travellers. We explicitly welcome and invite mixed heritage people. Our group includes people with varied race, ethnicity and sexual and gender identities. We welcome anyone who self-identifies as both queer and persons (people) of colour].

** in discussions think carefully about the impact you may have on people of different genders, sexualities, cultures, races and abilities. Members are free to challenge, address and debate, but we also request that we are careful and respectful in our approach to doing so. There are a wealth of different social, cultural, historical and political views amongst us. We are committed to creating safe space based on respect so please consider this when attending this event.

THANK YOU

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Politics of the Art School: Black Art Movement Then and Now

@ Nottingham Contemporary, 30 April 2015

6.30pm - 8.30pm

Free, The Space

At this event, key members of the 1980s 'Black Arts Movement' such as Keith Piper, Claudette Johnson and Said Adrus are hosted by London-based group Collective Creativity, who will offer critical reflections on this history and the contemporary circumstances under which students and other people of colour experience contemporary art school curriculum from the perspectives of QTIPOC (Queer, Trans* and Intersex People of Colour) creative practice. Collective Creativity produce spaces that are explicitly inclusive of, and created for and by, people of different sexualities and genders, and people of colour. For more information, visit the event page

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------UPDATE:

We just got back from Nottingham Contemporary where Collective Creativity (Rudy Loewe, Raisa Kabir, Evan Ifekoya and Raju Rage) facilitated a workshop with local art students around 'The Politics of the Art School' and a panel with Claudette Johnson, Keith Piper and Said Adrus, discussing issues of the global vs the local, how we want to be framed as artists and sustaining our practice in art education and beyond....Please check out the video for the panel.....

(the Glen Ligon curated exhibition 'Encounters and Collisions' was AMAZING and is well worth checking out!)

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We recently screened ‘Redefining Legacy: Navigating Practice As ‘Emerging’ Artists Of Colour’* at the QTIPOC Film Festival Glitch as part of a presentation and community building session.

The work reflects on our recent archival explorations at the Making Histories Visible Archive, UCLan, Preston, past Collective Creativity sessions woven together with extracts of an interview we did with Artist and Professor Lubaina Himid.

In the session, using the video as a starting point we discussed - creativity as radical practice, sustainability, strategic funding and how we might create nurturing and healing spaces together. 

Feel free to get in touch with thoughts or reflections on the video above, which is a work in progress - [email protected]

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Collective Creativity have just been awarded a Go and See bursary funding to (re)visit the Making Histories Visible archive in Preston UK! Hooray!

Undertaking a short residency at The Making Histories Visible archive, UCLan(makinghistoriesvisible.com) will support the archival and research work we (Evan Ifekoya, Raisa Kabir and Raju Rage) are doing with London based archive AAVAA (African, Asian Visual Arts Archive) at Chelsea, UAL as well as feed into our individual practices.  We aim to create discourse around the legacies of ‘black’ art in Britain and interrogate its impact on POC (people of colour) artists emerging today. (aka 'un-archiving' and 'putting ourselves in the picture')

We will also be using the opportunity to document our process and work we have been doing to date which we will present at GLITCH QPOC film festival Glasgow 2015 where we will be presenting 'QTIPoC Collective Creativity on Tour – Multimedia Presentation and Participatory Discussion Session - Navigating QT*IPoC Emerging Practices: In Conversation with Collective Creativity'. http://www.digitaldesperados.org/glitch/glitchprogramme-2015/

As a collective of QTPOC artists  who have all in some way felt failed by the art academy and our formal educations, this project offers up a space to critically reflect on those experiences and examine the gaps and absences in art institutions. We are invested in making more and better resources available so that future generations of QTI/POC artists don’t face the same sense of disillusionment. Our wider aims are to transform the sometimes inaccessible space of the archive, often held in gate keeping institutions into one that everyone feels entitled to access. With a deeper awareness of our histories as creative subjects we are better equipped to navigate the world as informed practitioners.

*Thanks to a-n (www.a-n.co.uk), Lubaina Himid (making Visible archive), GLITCH Film Festival 2015 

https://www.a-n.co.uk/news/go-and-see-bursaries-11-artists-initiatives-receive-funding

http://makinghistoriesvisible.com

http://www.digitaldesperados.org/glitch

image: collage using Thin Black Line(s) Publication published by Making Histories Visible, Centre for Contemporary Art 2011

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Navigating Emerging Practices at INIVA gallery

Navigating Emerging Practices - In Conversation with Collective Creativity  Evan Ifekoya, Raju Rage and Raisa Kabir will be holding a Collective Creativity session this week at INIVA Saturday 15th November 3pm - 5pm.

man•i•fest•ing 

(o)

to show plainly; reveal or display: to manifest great emotion.

(tr) to prove beyond doubt

(intr) (of a disembodied spirit) to appear in visible form

How do we Manifest our creativity as emerging practitioners? The session presents a Manifest-o of sorts that holds up the systemic barriers to the Institution as queer people of colour artists with a radical approach to creating, making and manifesting creativity. A performative presentation that takes a look at the way we've taken up space over the last year and half, created space for which to have these vital conversations, and ultimatly how our practice has manifested during these Collective Creativity sessions. Offering support, resources and space for other QTIPOC creatives and artists in London and further afield.

http://www.iniva.org/events/what_s_on/creative_collectivity_in_conversation_with_amanprit_sandhu

We invite you to come along and participate in this roundtable, please register on the above link.

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(E)merging Identity and Creative Practice - a creative & critical talk & workshop with Evan Ifekoya & Raju Rage

Workshop and talk taking place at ngbk, Berlin as part of the exhibition 'What is queer today is not queer tomorrow', organised by heidy collective. 

(E)merging Identity and Creative Practice - a creative & critical talk & workshop with Evan Ifekoya & Raju Rage

12.30-14h Creative and critical practice talk - Evan and Raju will be in conversation about their individual and collaborative creative practices.  This talk is open to the public (if you wish to attend the workshop after the talk, a reservation will be necessary for that workshop). 14 -17h (E)merging identity workshop - In small groups we will critically discuss and reflect on the nine micro cultures that make up our identity – class, race, ethnicity, gender, language, religion, ability, age and geography. There will be a 30 minute break in between.

The aim is for each participant to examine each microculture individually and explore how each has contributed to their whole person. From this, we will produce a series of portraits that will be presented to the group at the end of the session, using transparent (OHP) paper, pens, tape, a camera and projector. Through a creative and transformative process, we will perform and actualise future selves that engage with our past.

Please bring along the following:

An object that you feel close to or represents you in some way.

A piece of text - this could be a favourite quote, paragraph from a book/essay or a verse from a poem, for example.

Feel free to bring along materials to share, e.g. old magazines or stationary items. We will be using collage, drawing, text, photography and digital manipulation to create work. Come prepared to share, experiment and produce collaboratively. 

Places for the workshop are limited; you can sign up for (E)merging identity and creative practice - a creative & critical talk & workshop at [email protected] (please include the name of the workshop in the subject line).

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Between Urgency and Abstraction Performative Presentation

We are currently taking a break with Collective Creativity: critical reflections into QTIPOC creative practice. However, please do come along on the 25th June from 12.15-1.15pm to 'Between Urgency and Abstraction' (conference looking at culture studies after and beyond Stuart Hall) at Goldsmiths Uni for a Performative Presentation that reflects on Collective Creativity ....http://urgency-abstraction.tumblr.com/  We would especially like to see those who came to our sessions to be involved in the conversation as well as those interested as this talk is about taking cultural studies out of academia and institutions and bridging that gap between theory and practice. “Cultural identities come from somewhere, have histories. Like everything which is historical, they undergo constant transformation. Far from being eternally fixed in some essentialized past, they are subject to the continuous ‘play’ of history, culture and power. Far from being grounded in a mere ‘recovery’ of the past, which is waiting to be found, and which, when found, would secure our sense of ourselves into eternity, identities are the names we give to the different ways we are positioned and position ourselves within the narratives of the past.” Black Diaspora Artists in Britain: Three 'Moments' in Post-war History – Stuart Hall 2006 In Conversation with Collective Creativity: reflections on radical creativity and space. Join artists Evan Ifekoya, Raju Rage and Raisa Kabir in performing a presentation and recreating conversation in which they explore the reasoning and urgency that later created the radical space: “Collective Creativity”. Founded in response to the institutional racism in traditional art spaces, and to specifically nurture QTIPOC (queer trans* people of colour) creative practice. It was in this carving out space they bridged the gap between theory and practice, and instrumental at the centre of these sessions were the essays of cultural theorist Stuart Hall, allowing them to critically uncover their ‘own’ erased art histories and those of Black Artists in Britain. This collective self-transformative time, was held place at the Stuart Hall library, it’s access to materials crucial to them as emerging artists and writers, and in facilitating resistance. NOTE: Not QTIPOC specific. All are welcome

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Religion- Resistance & Response facilitated by Wai and Raju Rage

un/define-d: de/construction 1 by Raju Rage

Details: Sun 18th may 5-7pm Tate Modern Blue Room

Exploring secularism, atheism, individualised spirituality in activist/queer/art spaces as a result of historical state/cultural/religious institutional violence.

'When people assume that “religion” and “culture” exist as two separate categories, culture is then seen as an obstacle to knowing religion. In this view, what born-and-raised members of a religious tradition possess cannot be the religion in its pure, text-based essence, but only a mixture of that essence with local customs and innovated traditions. The convert (especially the white convert, who claims universality, supreme objectivity, and isolation from history, unlike the black convert, whose conversion is read as a response to history), imagined as coming from a place outside culture, becomes privileged as the owner of truth and authenticity.' by Michael Muhammad Knight

[content: a reference to the N word in 4th paragraph)http://m.vice.com/read/the-problem-with-white-converts-to-islam

‘If the invention of Christianity is also the invention of religion, then there is a co-implication between the identifcation of Christianity and the identification of religious truth. Christianity is, of course, marked as the truth of religion, but Christianity can identify itself in terms of true belief only if there is at the same time a category of religion whose goal is true belief. this is to say, then, that Christianity needs not only heresies, but also other religions. After all, if the Christian religion is true, there must be other religions that are false—otherwise Christian truth has no meaning except as a singularity among singularities.’ Daniel Colucciello Barber.

Homeless Jesus Sculpture: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/17/homeless-jesus-sculpture-davidson_n_5167418.html

We will reflect on the role of religion to discuss/answer:

How do we navigate and negotiate our own relationships to religion and culture?

What are the intersections of culture, tradition and religion? How do we negotiate and/or struggle with them?

What does creative/political resistance look like in response to religion?

Raju Rage will be sharing their current creative practice which focuses on ‘de/construction of identity exploring the conflicts and tensions inherent in navigating culture and ethnicity with gender and queerness using narratives, visual poetry, sculpture and performance’. 

We welcome you to bring any work you have regarding this theme to share.

Refreshments are always welcome.

[Please note that this session is an open discussion about a large and often difficult subject. We aim to explore the subject in a respectful meaningful way. We do not intend to place judgement or dismiss any personal beliefs that individuals have regarding any of the above subjects or their own chosen practices and aim to provide a space to collectively discuss the issues above. we acknowledge that there are many individual and collective responses to organised religion and its reverberations and resonances, of which some are resistances, some are transformations, some are dismissals, some and co-options, some survivals, some responses and so on.]

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Creative Writing and Storytelling facilitated by Olumide Popoola

Sunday April 13th 5-7pm, Blue meeting room, Tate Modern

Olu will read from her novel in progress, part of her practice based PhD project in Creative Writing (at UEL), and discuss her investigations around how conceptual ideas of border-crossing can give rise to original means of storytelling.  

We want to talk especially about how (academic) research and artistic expression can and do intersect, and how/ or if the university is a desirable home. 

We also welcome you to come along with your creative writing/stories/text/poems/lyrics. It can be: - something you wrote a while ago or something current that you are working on which you would like feedback on, or something that inspires you by another writer.

- any genre from sci-fi to love poetry/letters to recipes - in any format e.g. on paper, handwritten, printed, typewriter, post it, published, screen printed, zine, sketch book, envelope, notebook, laptop, phone etc. write (raɪt)  v. wrote, writ•ten, writ•ing. v.t. 1. to trace or form (characters, letters, words, etc.), esp. on paper, with a pen, pencil, or other instrument or means: Write your name on each page. 2. to express or communicate in writing: He wrote that he would be visiting soon. 3. to communicate with by letter or note: I write her every week. 4. to fill in the blank spaces of (a printed form) with writing: to write a check. 5. to execute or produce by setting down words, figures, etc.: to write two copies of a letter. 6. to produce as a written message: to write a thank-you note. 7. to be the author or originator of; compose: to write a sonnet. 8. to impress the marks or indications of: Honesty is written on his face. 9. to transfer (data, text, etc.) from computer memory to an output medium. 10. to underwrite. As always check out who we are and what we are about and how sessions are usually conducted. Do also let us know if there are any requirements to be considered. Refreshments always welcome.

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Looking Back// Thinking Forward

The Incredibly Qweer Adventours Of SpykeGrrl and MissTer ScraTch issue 1, by Raju Rage, 2004

A Boi is . . . (video still) by Evan Ifekoya, 2010

The sessions so far have mainly explored the practice of other creative practitioners. For this session, we would like to share and reflect on some of our past work. Evan and Raju will begin by sharing past video works, comix and writing. We will then open up the session to discussion and support you in presenting any work you wish to show. Questions that arose from the last session that we will continue to explore: -What have our creative ‘career’ journeys looked like so far? -How to we consider and define ourselves as artists? -As qtipoc (queer, trans* intersex) artists do we face identity-based challenges in getting to where we want to go and does this affect the work we produce? -Do we feel supported by peers and creative institutions. what does that look like? and also - How do we critically engage with each others work? If we aren't getting the support we need, how might we support each other? How do we best work with the resources available to us? Please feel free to bring physical work and texts. There is also a computer and projector if you have visuals online or on a memory stick to show. Please get in touch with us at [email protected] with any specific requirements. As usual this is an informal gathering of artists,activists and creative people. We would like to keep this session intimate and allow for a nourishing, constructively critical and supportive environment.  Sharing of resources and refreshments is always welcome.

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Practice What We Preach

'you though a girl is just this'......line drawing by Living Smile Vidya 

We thought it would be good to take some time to consider discussing and sharing our own practice. The past sessions have focused mostly on others work, in relation to ours, and so it seems like a good time to actually get down to ourselves. After reading this great article 'Anthems of Hope: An Interview with QTPOC Art Activist Amir Rabiyah 'http://niaking.tumblr.com/post/74133374582/photo-by-rostam-anthems-of-hope-an-interview a few questions that came to light to discuss were: -How to we consider and define ourselves as artists

-What have our creative 'career' journies looked like so far

-As qtipoc (queer, trans* intersex) artists do we face identity-based challenges in getting -to where we want to go and does this affect the work we produce?

-As political and/ or radical artists how do we measure success as an artist?

-Do we feel supported by peers and creative institutions. what does that look like?

-Is it possible to make a living from creative labour and what are those struggles and how do we work around or through it? Some of these questions have come up and been discussed before so we hope to allow more of a discussion in context to what we are creatively producing and hopefully those attending and participating can share what they have or are currently working on across artistic genres and use this space to build on their work with collective community interest and feedback. Feel free to also bring work that inspires you! We have access to a projector if needed and/or bring in your work in whatever form it takes. Email us if there are any requirements around this [email protected] As usual this is an informal gathering of artists,activists and creative people. We would like to keep this session intimate and allow for a nourishing, constructively critical and supportive environment.  Sharing of resources and refreshments are always welcome.

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Documentation of the Collective Creativity session 'Thinking through legacy : Redefining the Black arts movement' that took place on Saturday 11th of January 2014

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Thinking through legacy: Redefining the Black Arts movement

Dean Blunt 'Brixton 28s' 2013 installation view

Following on from a two part session last year titled Exploring the Legacies of Artists of Colour: What have been our influences as British Afro-Asian Artist’s today? we have decided to develop our thinking and research into the Black Arts movement in Britain. In this months session Thinking through legacy: Redefining the Black Arts movement we will begin to address how we continue the conversation in a way that is cross generational and can be disseminated creatively. What does a Black Arts movement mean now, to young artists working today and to those involved in it originally? Is it possible to critique the current institutional system whilst working within it?  It what ways are mainstream institutions 'post racial’? How has the work of Black Artists nominated for the Turner prize been received and critiqued, most recently Lynette Yiadom-Boakye (and previously The Otolith Group, Chris Ofili, Isaac Julien and Steve McQueen)? Many international POC Artists are present in major British institutions, how do Black British Artists continue to be marginalized? In the recent article for Art Monthly Post racialism Morgan Quaintance asks - 'If identity is constructed who is it constructed by? Whom does it serve, and according to what ideological commitments?’ He later goes on to say that ‘the shortsightedness of the second post-colonial generation here in the UK has been its inability to see how the representations it authored and supported, to challenge repressive institutions responsible for perpetuating states of otherness, may themselves become repressive for later generations they presume to speak for, and may be co-opted by the very forces they were meant to combat.’ His articles ends with the question of how we might ‘restore penetrability, build upon and reinvigorate a closed system of representation: a system variously labelled as internationalism, multiculturalism and identity politics that has stalled, 20 years on, at the point of deconstructing the very identities it sought to define’? We have invited key figures from the Black Arts movement to participate in the discussion and will add details as they are confirmed. 

Read Morgan Quaintance's article Post Racialism here -http://www.scribd.com/doc/182320548/Post-Racialism-Morgan-Quaintance-Art-Monthly-Oct-2013-pdf

Please note this month’s session will take place on a SATURDAY from 3-5pm.

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Sizzling Smut with Jacq Applebee and Camel Gupta Dec 1st 2013 Tate Modern Blue Meeting room 5-7pm

QTIPOC and Erotica What does it mean to us when we have a skewed presence in erotic fiction? Too often we find ourselves squashed into specialist (and hard to access) publications, or we are simply made invisible. People of colour are rarely presented in erotic fiction; for QTIPOC the situation is even bleaker. It seems that we can be Queer or we can be of Colour, but not both at the same time. The market for erotica featuring QTIPOC is very U.S-based. When these representations ignore those people of colour who live in the rest of the world, it brings up other problems. And what about QTIPOC folks who are also disabled, fat, or poor? Where do we find erotic fiction that speaks to our experiences? We will be looking at some extracts where we are out and proud. Feel free to bring along your favourite pieces of erotic fiction. We will look at what makes us squirm with delight, what makes us uncomfortable and what makes us come. There will be time for a discussion on what works and what doesn’t in their portrayal of QTIPOC. About the facilitators: Camel is a qtipoc creator, activist and recovering sometime academic. His relationship with BDSM is one of the most important and long-lasting aspects of his life but it's only this year that he tried writing smut for the first time. This will be his first time reading his own work.  J. Applebee is a black, British writer who breaks down barriers with smut. Her stories have appeared in over sixty publications including Best Women's Erotica, Ultimate Lesbian Erotica, Penthouse and DIVA magazine. She has also penned An Expanded Love, a romance about multiple loving. http://j-applebee.tumblr.com/ An extract of J Applebee's Skin head is available, please email us for a copy. [email protected] WHO WE ARE: Collective Creativity: critical reflections into QTIPOC creative practice is a space that is explicitly inclusive of, and created for and by, people of different sexualities AND genders by and for people of colour. [This is including, but not limited to Intersex, Bisexual, Transgender, Lesbian, Gay, Queer, Gender-Queer, Gender-Variant or non conforming, Undefined, Questioning, and Exploring persons) who are descended (through one or more parents) anywhere in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Indigenous peoples of Australasia, the Americas, the Islands of the Atlantic, Indian Pacific, and Roma Sinti (and) Travellers. We explicitly welcome and invite mixed heritage people. Our group includes people with varied race, ethnicity and sexual and gender identities. We welcome anyone who self-identifies as both queer and persons (people) of colour]. We would like to intentionally share space and ideas to reflect on texts/films/art (and more) in a group setting, that inspire, interest or provoke us and/or our practice.  This space is for those who wish to engage, discuss, critique, converse, share, hang out and build community with each other. This is a collaborative collective project. We are dedicated and endeavour to make this group as accessible as possible. if you have ideas on how we could improve or can help support us with this please get in touch (e,g access to accessible venues/BSL/subtitling/translations/printing and resources e.t.c.) THE WAY IT WORKS:  Each event is facilitated by one or more individuals who will share/present one item of text/film/art (or another format) to be decided in advance (at the end of the previous session) and posted up/given to everyone attending in advance and on the day. Following that we will engage in an open conversation about it. This is an open platform for all people (inclusively) so that means we must take responsibility and accountability for what we share and present with the group and how we relate to each other.  [Please consider this when choosing your selections, in discussions and think carefully about the impact it may have on people of different genders, sexualities, cultures, races and abilities. Members are free to challenge, address and debate, but we also request that we are careful and respectful in our approach to doing so. There are a wealth of different social, cultural, historical and political views amongst us. We are committed to creating safe(r) space based on respect so please consider this when attending this event.]

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In 'The Success and Failure of Black Art' Rasheed Araeen looks at the impact of the Black Art movement and what legacy it has left for Black Artists working today.

Some questions that Araeen seeks to answer-

What and who was the Black Arts movement?

How did the Black Arts movement fail and at whose fault?

What framework did the Black Arts movement create for Radical Black Artists working today?

What can we learn from the Black Arts movement to do differently this time around?

We will have time over the next Collective Creativity session, on Sunday 3rd of November to share our responses to this article.