Radiant @radiantvoice - Tumblr Blog

"The soul, secured in her existence, smiles at the drawn dagger, and defies its point." Iridessence Photography x Gold Frame Photo.

surra-de-bunda

En Vogue at the 33rd Annual Grammy Awards (1991).

odissea

one day I’ll have enough money to buy les nereides jewellery 🥲 one day…

blackexcellence

Today in Black Excellence: Maya Angelou—a literature titan whose 1969 memoir was the first nonfiction bestseller by an African American woman.

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” —Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.

What was the early life of Maya Angelou?

She became a celebrated writer and Black icon, but it came from a childhood of tragedy. Born on April 4, 1928, in St. Louis, Missouri, Angelou was quickly exposed to racism as a child. Her parents split when she was young, and while visiting her mother, aged eight, she was raped by her mother’s boyfriend: her uncles killed the boyfriend in revenge. These horrors left Angelou mute for five years, as she discussed in an interview with Oprah, a close friend. At age 16, she gave birth and was forced to work grueling jobs to support her son—including fry cook, sex worker, and nightclub performer.

She recounted her traumas to close friend James Baldwin—fellow writer and Black icon. He challenged Angelou to write about her experiences, and she published the wildly successful memoir I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. It catapulted Angelou to international stardom and was nominated for a National Book Award in 1970. It remained on The New York Times’ paperback nonfiction bestseller list for two years—the longest record in history.

What made her such a Black icon?

Angelou was a close friend of Martin Luther King Jr., who was assassinated on her birthday in 1968. Angelou stopped celebrating her birthday for years afterward. In 1964, Angelou helped another activist friend Malcolm X in founding the Organization of Afro-American Unity.

Spanning over 50 years, she published seven autobiographies, three books of essays, books of poetry, and plays. Her 1971 poetry collection, Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water ’Fore I Die, was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. Because of her tireless work in literature and political activism, Angelou became widely respected as a spokesperson for the Black experience, particularly of women. You can even find her legacy in your pocket—she recently became the first black woman to appear on a US quarter.

Original portrait by Tumblr Creatr @inuqo

"I was filled with such deep gratitude while working on this illustration of Maya Angelou. Her talent, creativity, strength, power and resilience is inspiring to us all and I wanted to display how beautiful her Universe was. How important her words and life's journey was because it showed us that no matter how hard we fall, still we can rise".”

—@inuqo

corrupting-youth-st

Proyecto Histórico

A Mujerista method of liberative praxis

Proyecto Histórico in Mujerista theology (Ada María Isasi-Díaz) is defined as what is and what will be justice.

It is the means of liberating historical events.

Proyecto Histórico is a liberative praxis (theory, reflection and action) that pulls collective consciousness to tell the histories - through lived experiences - of an oppressed people’s struggle. It is context of ancestral background, the mark of existence for our people. It is the language of the past told at present.

Proyecto Histórico is understanding history told collectively through the consciousness of la gente luchando, of history often erased and whitewashed by Euro/American teachings, by imperialism and post/colonialism. It teaches of history to come towards power.

Proyecto Histórico uses popular education to bring about conscientizaçao (the learning to perceive social, political, and economic contradictions, and to take action against the oppressive elements of reality). It is grassroots and sustainable.

Proyecto Histórico is essential to Mujerista theory and the liberation of all people against oppressive structures.

wocinsolidarity

Another example of a literary tradition that has informed understandings of Latinas is testimonio. Testimonio involves firsthand accounts, or life stories, that are transcribed by another person and recount personal and collective experiences of oppression. Smith (2010) explained that the different genres of testimonies include nonfiction and historical fiction, and are “resistance text.” For example, through testimonio literary works, Latin American women have taken on abusive governmental regimes in countries such as Argentina, Guatemala, and Chile by bringing to light stories of oppression, exile, and extreme violence. Unfortunately, within Eurocentric circles of the literary world, authors of testimonies have been met with critique bordering on disdain. In addition to challenges with categorizing testimonios in the preexisting categories of fiction, nonfiction, or history, issues of the legitimacy and ownership of voice (e.g., who tells and who retells the story) are central issues (Smith, 2010). Historically, the voice of the other and the self is a concern for both feminist researchers and psychologists, and Brabeck (2003) contended that disrupting otherness requires examination of “our own positions in addition to the positions of others, and to explore how these positions interact and intersect” (p. 253). By centering often-untold stories, testimonio facilitates engagement by giving voice to both the oppressive story and the resistance narrative (Brabeck, 2003).

Susana Martinez and Josefina E. Durán, “Mujeristas and Social Justice: La Lucha Es La Vida” in Womanist and Mujerista Psychologies : Voices of Fire, Acts of Courage (2016)

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Pink moth species

ancientorigins

Wine windows are probably not the first medieval feature that comes to mind when you think of Florence, Italy. But in these times of social distancing, the little wooden hatches that were made centuries ago have been opened once again. And people love them!

mausspacearchive

fuck summer i want it to be dark and misty and frigid and october

songs-of-the-east

Inside Siberia’s isolated community of forgotten women. Photographed by Oded Wagenstein.

“In the remote village of Yar-Sale in Northern Siberia, live a group of elderly women. They were once part of a nomadic community of reindeer herders. However, in their old age, they spend most of their days in seclusion, isolated from the world they loved and their community. While men are usually encouraged to remain within the migrating community and maintain their social roles, the women often face the struggles of old age alone.It took a flight, a sixty-hour train ride from Moscow, and a seven-hour bone-breaking drive across a frozen river to meet them. I immersed myself in their closed community, and for days, over many cups of tea, they shared their stories, lullabies, and longings with me.On this series, the memories of the past, represented by the images of the outside world, are combined with the portraits of current reality.

By doing so, I tried to give their stories a visual representation. One that could last after they are already gone.

(*Like Last Year’s Snow is a Yiddish expression – referring to something which is not relevant anymore)”

- Oded Wagenstein

whatareyoureallyafraidof

See a pattern?

danielle-mertina

This is really an issue of class. Public schools are reopening because the government wants the parents of low income kids to continue working and risking their lives doing “essential jobs.”

Meanwhile schools that primarily serve upper middle class and wealthy kids will not physically reopen. Plus, parents with the time, money and ability to homeschool their children or switch them to private will not be sending their kids to school in the fall.

Schools reopening is pretty much exclusively an attack on low income kids and their families. And the teachers and staff who serve them.

nightcalicos

Actually the MOST cottagecore thing is fighting for indigenous sovereignty and then working communally on the land to support each other as well as the environment while not upholding colonial ideologies

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Rufino Tamayo

1899-1991

TRES PERSONAJES, 1970

oil and sand on canvas 38 1/8 x 51 ¼ in. | 96.8 x 130.2 cm.

noosphe-re

Learning that color is a fiction of light is one of the primary shocks of growing up: that this hitherto deeply physical thing is just a reflection, and that nothing can keep its color under the cover of darkness, are monstrous things to understand, even for my adult mind. Yet there is something about color’s frailty at its twilight moment of oblivion that also brings out its magnificence. At color’s juncture with night, everything is suddenly in climax. The world gleams like burnished metal; water like inlaid gold. The sky hangs like heavy weave tapestry. Detail is secondary and focus is lost. The dullest window glows with evanescent glory and even streetlights dominate with an intensity normally unknown to them. Then you watch in thrill and panic as this vivid world is slowly tarnished by night, both woolly and indistinct, denying finally the mysterious illusion of color.

Tacita Dean, Magic Hour, 2007, Colour, Documents of Contemporary Art, edited by David Batchelor, 2008 (via inthenoosphere)