In The AIR by Artist In Residence, Mariah M.
The role of the artist is exactly the same as the role of the lover.
If I love you, I have to make you conscious of the things you don’t see.
― James Baldwin
I am honored to be the inaugural Artist-in-Residence (AIR) at The Beautiful Project. Beautiful actualizes Baldwin’s quote via the Lens, Pen and Soul. As a worldbuilder and abolitionist, I've been able to actualize myself as an artist by creating spaces for others to learn, explore and experiment via creative writing, performance and playspaces for political education. I understand my identity as a creative to be inseparable from my role in community, and am always identifying and filtering out practices that no longer serve the health of the collective or myself.
I’d like to use this column to share what I’m reading and working on at large within and outside of this residency, and offer technologies I find lifegiving and liberating. Look for reading excerpts, writing prompts, and maybe a playlist or few, that will have you considering your relationship to self, the communities you live and create in, and your responsibility to each. If you are Black and queer, I invite you to join Black Extract, an online writing circle held bi-weekly on Thursdays. Black Extract welcomes creative writers and lovers of prose, poetry and beyond to fellowship and practice the technology of distillation; drawing out our sweetness, our sour and our selves using works gifted by Afro-futurists women and Black radical feminist writers over their lifetimes and ours. The first gathering will be held on March 2nd at 6pm EST. Register at bit.ly/BEcircle. Come nourish your artist self and find kindred to commune with beyond the circle. All levels of writers are welcome in this space for us, by us!
I’m excited to see how my artistry expands while in this role, the connections to be made, what’s to be learned, created and destroyed. Boundless gratitude to The Beautiful Project for trusting me to be an artist in their legacy of storytelling, self-efficacy and empowerment of Black women, femmes and non-binary folk.
