DIVINE INTERVENTION

DIVINE INTERVENTION : STORIES OF LOVE & SOLIDARITY

Celebrating Deep Connections Among Black & Asian Artists, Cultural Workers & Community Organizers

Featuring an Installation by Lehna Huie @ MOCADA Abolition House Aug 18 - Nov 3, 2024

Through interdisciplinary research methods, this activation space gathers stories of love and solidarity within global freedom struggles. Divine Intervention uplifts the work of cultural workers, organizers, and artists drawing together diverse stories of devotion to their communities during the COVID years (2020-present).

This installation translates several interview processes into applied textile, collage, and photographic and video-based interpretations of daily rituals of care, commitment, and recovery that are rooted in anti-imperialism and decolonization. Utilizing plant matter as a means of connecting the spirit of nature with oral traditions, Divine Intervention considers that for many, the path towards freedom includes tapping into a variety of healing methods and practices that inform and assist in navigating life’s many twists and turns illustrating varying expressions of love and presence inviting the audience to reflect on how war, genocide, and freedom impact us all..

This work honors and celebrates the deep interpersonal relationships between Black and Asian communities who build and share collectively with intention in their movement work. Each story centers the acts of sustaining wellness in commitment to self and community while paying homage to freedom fighters of the past, present, and future. The opening reception included an interactive collaborative ritual performance titled Untrapped by dear friends Lehna Huie and Yalini Dream.

Learn About the Participants & Read Their Interviews Below

INTERVIEW # 1 : FRANCES & SHAUN

FRANCES PEREZ - RODRIGUEZ

Frances Perez - Rodriguez ( she / her) was born in Puerto Rico, raised in New York City, and stands in solidarity with the oppressed peoples of the world. She is deeply inspired by the reality of maintaining a healthy relationship with the planet and with one another through connecting with and freeing the land. A Farm School NYC graduate, Frances prides herself on being Woke Foods' Food & Land Education Coordinator, Rise & Root Farm's market manager, and a member of La Finca Del Sur Community Farm where she grows produce and herbs (both for herself and the South Bronx Farmers Market/community), and assists with culturally-relevant programming centered around urban agriculture, food sovereignty, and healing with herbalism, political education, and the ability to reimagine our world. She is a daughter, a youth leader, a community organizer, and above all, seeker of truths.

SHAUN LIN

Shaun Lin is pursuing a PhD in geography at the CUNY Graduate Center, where his research interests include immigrant communities, food and foodways, and abolition geography. He is an adjunct lecturer in Urban Studies at Queens College. Originally from Los Angeles, Shaun is a longtime resident of Sunset Park, Brooklyn where he organizes with Sunset Park for a Liberated Future, Yuri Malcolm Mural Project, and No New Jails NYC against gentrification, displacement, policing and prisons.

INTERVIEW # 1

Lehna: How do you and your communities best take care of yourselves and one another in the times we are living in?

Frances: I’m noticing more intentional check-ins, via virtual messaging and in-person, between loved ones, to and from mine, for instance.

Being vulnerable with one another, openly talking about therapy, folks being encouraging and asking how they can be supportive, letting fam know you’re interested in being there for them.

Maybe something about the little big ways we insist on maintaining contact and also more of a willingness to engage on the subject of our individual and collective mental health.

Shaun: Especially during the covid pandemic and throughout lockdown, I've also noticed people sharing their vulnerabilities more freely.

Sometimes that vulnerability was sharing emotional or mental health struggles, sometimes that vulnerability was sharing economic precarity or struggles with an employer or landlord.

For me, seeing people share about whatever they are struggling with has been helpful in both breaking down any individual sense of shame related to these issues and helping to identify ways that many of these issues are systemic and structural and that we can collectively hold one another and support each other in community.

Frances: We also want to uplift CopWatch, mutual aid (whether that be through sharing funds, contributing to and maintaining community fridges, donation drives for emergency resources), and ongoing COVID care - sharing tests or info on where to get them, asking loved ones what their COVID protocol is before linking up, checking in on and/or taking care of folks who’ve fallen ill.

Lehna: What healing methods do you use in your daily practices of care?

Frances: Intentional breathing, journaling, stretching, neck and wrist rolls, self-massage, drinking tea and working to maintain hydration, time away from screens, prayer, expressing gratitude.

Shaun: I’m very grateful to Frances for constantly reminding me to take care of myself in the ways she described above – meditating, stretching, turning off our screens and going outside.

And the regular reminders to be easy on ourselves, that we are not defined by our productivity but by the day-to-day love and kindness that we show ourselves and each other.

Lehna: Why are relationships between Black and Asian people important to you personally?

Shaun: I grew up in LA. And I remember the National Guard moving in to protect affluent White neighborhoods like West Hollywood and Beverly Hills during the 1992 LA Rebellion, while abandoning South Central and Koreatown to burn.

I remember the intense media focus on Black-Asian tensions – and having my feelings hurt by Ice Cube’s song “Black Korea.”

While i didn’t have the language for it then, i understood that the White power structure of LA had effectively dodged accountability for the systemic issues - like police brutality and historic disinvestments in Black communities - that protestors were upset about.

It wasn’t until my 20s when i started organizing that i learned about the histories of Black-Asian solidarity and anti-colonial struggle – histories like Mao Zedong meeting WEB Du Bois and Shirley Graham during their tour of China, the Bandung Conference, the radical friendship between Malcolm X and Yuri Kochiyama extending later to Yuri’s work with the New York Panthers and Young Lords, and the work of James and Grace Lee Boggs in Detroit.

I understood these as examples of Internationalism and Third World solidarity that challenge the divide-and-conquer tactics of racial capitalism at its root.

Frances: Violence between, and often against, Black and Asian folks is rooted in White supremacy and if we truly wish to be free, it’s important we acknowledge and challenge that.

Challenge the insistence to pit us against each other (by reinforcing dangerous stereotypes, for example) and erase lifetimes of solidarity.

As a Black Puerto Rican person, it’s important for me to maintain meaningful relationships, in my organizing work and personal life, with Asian folks because histories and present day stories have taught me what we’re capable of when we work and struggle together against our “common enemy” / systems of oppression.

I think of (and am grateful for!) Shaun, who introduced me to Yuri Kochimaya’s work and my being struck by the ways she and Malcolm X both influenced and expanded one another.

The groups of people they connected, the ways they grew the movement together. I also think of CAAAV going hard, very loudly pushing back against racist, conservative voices when NYPD officer Peter Liang killed Akai Gurley; insisting Asian folks understand and center the real issue (policing). Urging folks to come together and resist false, racist narratives.

Lehna: Please share a word, phrase, blessings, affirmation prayer that represents healing in your language.

Frances: tamo bien

Shaun: “ We are each other’s harvest:

we are each other’s business:

we are each other’s magnitude and bond.”

- Gwendolyn Brooks (from the poem “Paul Robeson”)

INTERVIEW # 2 : SHARMIN

SHARMIN HOSSAIN

Sharmin Hossain (she/her) is a Bangladeshi-American queer Muslim project manager, design strategist and artist, from Queens, New York. Sharmin is the Organizing Director at 18MillionRising - a national digital-first Asian American advocacy organization where she works on campaigns to mobilize over 170,000 members around social issues. A co-founder of the Bangladeshi Feminist Collective and graduate from CUNY Hunter College, Sharmin spends her time making zines and mixed media collages, doing cultural work, and nerding out about Muslim and South Asian political history and liberation struggles.

INTERVIEW # 2

Lehna: How do you and your communities best take care of yourselves and one another in the times we are living in?

Sharmin: I am really blessed to have grown up in a vibrant community of immigrants and queer people of Color that are based between New York and Philadelphia.

And in NY, when the Pandemic hit, I was living in the epicenter.

I was able to be a part of a process where we change the way we show up for each other by getting back to the basics.

Like grocery shopping, making sure people have food, making sure people have masks and medicine.

It really took some of the weight off in how we show up in our relationships because people began loving and healing together at the levels of our food, shelter and clothing.

I often host potlucks with my friends. We host community dinners. We bring food to the People’s Fridges that have been set up all across the city.

And we do mutual aid work, both here and in Bangladesh - where we get to collect money and resources to support queer people of Color and their survival.

My community is made up of people who want to see each other survive and thrive.

So whether it’s finding sliding scale therapy, or healing sessions together with sound baths and going on hikes and nature trips. And getting back to the land.

We all incorporate healing modalities that really bring us back home to ourselves.

Lehna : What healing methods do you use in your daily practices of care?

Sharmin : Speaking of, some of the healing methods that I use in my daily practices of care, I meditate daily.

I was lucky to be part of a Spirit Rock silent meditation course a few years ago that really taught me how to bring meditation into my daily ethos.I read a lot to meditate on my psychological growth but also my spiritual growth.

I incorporate books and reading that have me engaging in deeper questioning and learning.

I use Native technology like sage and herbs when I need to cleanse my spirit and my house of any negative energy or bad thoughts.

As a Bangladeshi, I also incorporate a lot of turmeric and Panch Phoron ( which is our five spice into our foods) to be able to nourish me and bring good herbal medicine energy to my gut health.

I drink things like kombucha and plant gardens that grow kale and scallions which I eat almost every day.

I also work with Black and Indigenous folks in Philadelphia that do urban gardening to learn about how to grow my own plant collection.

In my daily practices I also do skin care that helps me nourish my skin. I have eczema, so I often have to use serums and creams that really help my skin address some of the dryness.

I am a person that really embodies healing and care in the way that I speak to people, laugh with people and even write and journal.

These practices really help me to stay attuned to rituals that really bring me back to what matters.

Lehna: Why are relationships between Black and Asian people important to you personally?

Sharmin: I grew up in Queens NY where I had deep relationship to Black community because I went to a Black highschool and the Black neighborhood I grew up in comprised of this cluster of immigrants that were coming in from South Asia and the Indo- Caribbean in the 60’s and 70’s that were coming in to Black communities.

Black communities welcomed us with open arms. Black folks were the ones who taught me about swag, they taught me about abolition, they taught me about music and hip hop - and the art of hip hop.

And for me Black and Asian people carry a legacy of anti-imperialism and immigration and forced migration and indentured servitude and caste.

To really heal ourselves from anti- blackness, and anti - Dalitness, we really need to engage with the most oppressed across Asia and the Black Diaspora

And so for Black and Asian people who are deeply bonded, in relationships to capital, migration and labor.

It really speaks to the multitudes of ways we have both fed each other to bring the 60’s and 70’s internationalist movements, that were fighting against British colonialism and imperialism.

But also the larger ethos of culture where asian food, black art and asian cultural practices are also part of a big mass of people across the world.

We are some of the largest communities of the world. So much power lies in us. For me, Black and Asian solidarity isn’t the verbiage of Black Lives Matter or the sign on our walls.

But its actually a deep ancestral relationship between our communities.

We have been robbed through colonialism and imperialism and slavery.

And for Black folks to trust and love on Asian folks and vice versa, it's an act of resistance that speaks to our inherent legacy of anti- oppression.

I now live in a Black city in Philadelphia. To be treated with such love and care to know who my neighbors are, to garden and have my neighbor teach me about garden tools, it really brings so much joy in my life to practice this level of care at the micro level but also at the macro level when we are fighting against billionaires and developments and making sure the People’s Fridge is full.

I am a queer Muslim and have been enagaing in studying with Islamic Liberation Theology for many years now. And the bedrock in Islamic theology and the pedagogy I am engaging with a religion that so many Black and Asian people practice, is understanding its inherent role in both formerly enslaved people that were brought over to the quote unquote New World that were practicing Muslims and the role that their faith anf their commitment to liberation played in the abolitionist movement and the growth of Muslim communities in the the US - particularly Pakistanis, Bangladeshis and Indians that came over and the relationships between Black Muslims and Muslims who came from Asia, is extremely inspiring.

It is so amazing to watch Pakistanis a part of the Ahmadi movement were working with Black Movements that were fighting for the liberation of their people, and created movements.

For me, that history of Islam and the interconnectednedss of Black Islam and Islam Across the South Asian diaspora have always been a powerful tool against capitalism and caste oppression capitalism is pertinent and its something that we need to look back at in order to deeply engage with our politics and histories as people.

So to me Black and Asian solidarity beyond the food and the ways that we share culture, its also about our liberation and the ways that our movements have supported each other. Primarily how Black Muslims and Black folks from the diaspora have been a part of the legacy that Asian Americans have in this country.

Thank you for inviting me into this process, I am excited to see the growth of the Bandung Residency and as always I am here to support and help you in the next steps.

Lehna: Please share a word, phrase, blessings, or prayer that represents healing in your language.

Sharmin: The Messenger of Allah said, He who recites three times every morning and evening:

Bismillaahil - lathee laa yadhurru ma’ as - mihi shay’un fil -’ardhi wa laa fis - samaa’i wa Huwas - Samee’ ul Aleem

In the Name of Allah with Whose Name there is protection against every kind of harm in the earth or in the heaven, and He is the All - Hearing and All- Knowing, nothing will harm him.

INTERVIEW # 3 : MUKYAH

MUKYAH GURUNG

I am a musician based in Kathmandu, Nepal at the moment. I am pro nature and have respect for all the old world cultures. I believe in divine justice and the rights of people, plants, and animals of our planet. I believe in one Creator in spite of so many names - people want to put on separating rather than uniting us. I practice inter-connectedness amongst everything that is around me and my environment.

INTERVIEW # 3

Lehna: How do you and your communities best take care of yourselves and one another in the times we are living in?

Mukyah: Here in Nepal, we have many ethnicities, but we share a common tradition of encompassing other people who are different from our own kind.

It is reflected in our arts, in our spirituality.

It is more all encompassing than separatist. We are so interdependent on each other.

Lehna: What healing methods do you use in your daily practices of care?

Mukyah: My mom always reminds me to visit people in grief and hard times, more than the times of celebration.

Usually the whole village or community shows up when there's a need.

Since healing to me is not a quick fix of any kind, I do some mantra recitation if there's an urgent need.

Right now I am in my home town which already makes me feel connected.

I feel very blessed now at the moment to be here, since I was not here in Nepal for many years.

I always ask my ancestors for guidance through divination.

Ask them if my family is doing all right.

Lehna : Why are relationships between Black and Asian people important to you personally?

Mukyah : While I stayed almost 2 decades in the US I got to share a special bond with Black people of African heritage. I felt accepted by them as family so I always felt a need to reciprocate the love.

Also, when I was in the US, I needed guidance from an elder being far from home. My teacher and mentor is of African descent.

Through his blessings I got introduced to a spirituality not from my native land, but it connected me more to my own roots.

It taught me our own inner connectedness with our divinites.

Whether home or far away, there's always some divinity that will see through you and help and guide you.

Lehna: Please share a word, phrase, blessings, or prayer that represents healing in your language.

Mukyah : I would like to share three mantras that my mom taught me as a child.

Om ah hung vajra guru

Pema siddhi hung

Om mani Padme hum

The mantras are Sanskrit and Tibetan together, but they say that in this life, first you understand experientially and then you learn intellectually.

INTERVIEW # 4 : YUL - SAN LIEM

YUL - SAN LIEM

Yul-san ( she/ her / they/ them ) has been taking it to the streets, raising funds, and making art as part of New York City's social and racial justice movements since 2001. She is currently the Justice Committee's Director of Development and Operations, after serving as a JC Co-Director from 2012-2021 and a volunteer and consultant prior to that. During her time as Justice Committee staff, Yul-san helped to found and lead the citywide CopWatch Alliance and the multi-sector campaign, Communities United for Police Reform - for which she sat on its Steering Committee and Executive Committee and co-chaired its Community Empowerment Working Group. In the past, Yul-san has been a staff member and consultant for Nodutdol for Korean Community Development, CAAAV Organizing Asian Communities, and the Audre Lorde Project. From 2003-2010 she served as Co-Coordinator and artist for the multimedia exhibit, Still Present Pasts, Korean Americans and the “Forgotten War.”

INTERVIEW # 4

Lehna: What healing methods do you use in your daily practices of care?

Yul- San : I believe that caring for one another is part of how we live the world that we are trying to create as movement people and activists.

Some of that is simple things like checking in on one another.

Texting and sending them some heart emojis to say we are thinking of you.

Creating space for folks to vent, unload or process depending on what they need. Create space for people to get away from what they are dealing with.

For me, this is the space my partner and I are creating.

To the extent that we can create spaces of rest, distraction, contemplation and processing growth for each other whether physical or emotional energetic space is a way my comrades and I support each other.

It's a hard question. For me personally if I am doing well, I meditate - which is not often.

But meditation is a practice that I have found helpful and should do more of. I have become an animal person - petting animals helps.

My daily practice of care that I try to do most is active listening and expressions of care.

Sending text emojis, organizing is a healing practice - healing society is a goal of organizing.

To the extent that we are organizing to create change that will heal sick and problematic societies at the root of individual suffering. Organizing is a healing practice. Work to build power, build unity skills building and leadership development can be considered healing as well.

Lehna: Why are relationships between Black and Asian people important to you personally?

Yul- San : I am an Asian person working in a part of the movement around issues that disproportionately affect BIPOC folks, the way it shows up for Asians looks different although it impacts us too. NYPD Stop and Frisk – East Asian folks are less impacted by the percentage they make of the population.

As someone not as directly impacted as people who are significantly impacted - for me I raise that because I am deeply in relationship with Black, Latinx and Indigenous people. That is a core way in which people drive the expertise they need to identity the change that is needed. That reality is important to me and thoughtful about the work that I do.

More broadly speaking, when you originally asked me to do the interview, I was like what do I know about Black Asian solidarty?

It's been a long time since I have collaborated with Asians, but it is very different from doing the work of doing Black and Asian communities do together to collectively go after shared targets.

Not work that I have been doing, but work that I have a lot of respect for.

That work became more important through the pandemic with Black and Asian targeted violence.

Solidarity building work. So many ways in which moments like that are used by the system to exacerbate racial tensions. Black and Asian tensions.

This is my lens - I have a tendency to view things from what is the struggle and how are we engaging in the struggle together. Black Asian relationships whether real or imagined in the mainstream.

It is important to keep folks together in solidarity.

The truth is that I think one of the ways also to overcome those harmful narratives that get promoted for people getting divided is hearing folks describe their relationships.

It is helpful for people to understand each other, it is how we break out of harmful negative narratives.

Lehna: Please share a word, phrase, blessings, or prayer that represents healing in your language.

Yul- San : Toojeng- means Struggle in Korean organizing and struggling. My Korean is limited. I dont have the vocabulary to describe it.

INTERVIEW # 5 : KAZEMBE

KAZEMBE BALAGUN

Kazembe Balagun (he/ him) is a writer and cultural historian based in the Bronx, New York. He has worked for over two decades in public engagement for social, racial and ecological justice. Kazembe’s work is centered in building spaces for dialogue and education for community development across multiple disciplines. Kazembe is the current Executive Director of Maysles Documentary Center, Harlem’s only arthouse movie theater - nonprofit organization committed to documentary film, education and community. Balagun is a longtime community organizer and cultural curator—he previously worked as the education director at the old Brecht Forum and as a project manager at the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation. Balagun’s most recent work prior to Maysles, was Project Manager at the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung New York Office, where he focused on the international dimensions of the Black Lives Matter Movement, Right to the City and solidarity economy, have put him at the forefront of the power of the arts.

INTERVIEW # 5

Lehna: How do you and your communities best take care of yourselves and one another in the times we are living in?

Kazembe : We have been living in remarkable and dark times. For me, I am navigating a lot of grief. Not only COVID -

But for me the loss of my Mom, who was the matriarch of our family.

We have to embody showing up.

Considering all that we have been to in terms of the challenges of being together. Showing up for each other.

For me and my immediate family, it is helping take care of my dad.

Remembering and making sure my Dad, aunts and uncles are seeing my son.

And get the joy of his growing up.

To show up with response to asks of extended community and mutual aid.

Showing up for people who need immediacy with money or family time.

Also allowing myself to be by myself at times.

And understanding that sometimes when I feel tired or depressed.

It is not necessarily a bad thing. But it is a space of awareness. That allows me to be a little bit more aware of my body. Aware of my circumstances.

And allows me a space to chart a path forward.

So that is the way I have been working through that stuff.

Trying to keep the family together.

Lehna:What healing methods do you use in your daily practices of care?

Kazembe: Initially a big thing I was doing a lot has been cooking.

My Mom was a big pastry chef.

For me now, it’s making sure I go outside, meditate and pray.

Listening to a lot of music.

I am big into spiritual jazz.

The albums I have been listening to are John Coltrane, Live in Japan, Alice Coltrane Journey in Satchdananda, a lot of Pharaoah Sanders.

All of those guys were really infused with their Eastern and South Asian influences within an African American Context.

All of that has been a part of my healing journey in terms of the way I re-up.

A lot of gospel music. Those are my daily go- to's.

Lehna: Why are relationships between Black and Asian people important to you personally?

Kazembe: Man, I mean I just think that I struggle with this question.

I grew up in an age where Black and Asian releationships were the lowest in the 1990’s when the riots were happening.

There was of conflict between Black people and Korean store owners. There was a sense of Asian people being seen as parasites on the Black community. Or exploiting the Black community.

What I found is that we have a common struggle and a common enemy. That enemy is capitalism.

I find that wherever I have been in the city I have lived in working class community, we are all going through the same thing. Whether we are Jamaican, Filipino, African American, Puerto Rican.

A lot of us are nurses or aides, wearing scrubs, we are taking out the garbage.

The other day I was in the elevator with a woman and she said “ we should have a service elevator” and I said to her “ lady, we are the service, this is the Bronx.”

That is what we find in the Bronx these days. A lot more East Asians, Latinos and other types of Black folks. Because we mostly been pushed out of other communities.

I find it important to build stronger bonds across borders to fight for social justice and revolution.

That’s what Bandung was. Bandung was about decolonization.

Decolonization is about flipping things on its head.

All this time all the Northern Powers were keeping their power in the United Nations. And the Bandung refused that narrative - they believed that the power was from the bottom.

They flipped it over.

We need to have a Bandung Conference of a new type.

My kid grew up in Parkchester, and Virginia Avenue Playground was its own little Bandung Conference. You have the kids wearing Islamic garb and the Black kids with the cracked tooth and the Bangladeshi kids all playing together.

Lehna: Please share a word, phrase, blessings, or prayer that represents healing in your language.

KAZEMBE’S Prayer Offering:

The Beginning Of The Day

O God, I find myself at the beginning of another day,
I do not know what it will bring,
Please help me to be ready for whatever it may be.
If I am to stand up, help me to stand bravely.
If I am to sit still, help me to sit quietly.
If I am to lie low, help me to do it patiently
If I am to do nothing, let me do it gallantly.
I pray just for today, for these twenty-four hours,
for the ability to cooperate with others
according to the way Jesus taught us to live.
"Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven."
May these words that he taught us become more than words.
Please free my thinking and feelings
and the thinking and feelings of others,
from all forms of self-will, self-centredness, dishonesty, and deception.

Along with my brothers and sisters, I need this freedom

to make my choices today according to your desires.

Send your Spirit to inspire us in time of doubt and indecision so that, together, we can walk along your path. ..... Amen.

-- adapted with thanks from an unknown source.

INTERVIEW # 6: ANTONIUS & THERESA

ANTONIUS BUI

Antonius Bui (they/ them) is a polydisciplinary artist and shapeshifter invested in the transformative potential of ritual, portraiture, craft, and performance. They are the child of Paul and Van Bui, two Vietnamese refugees who sacrificed everything to provide a future for their four kids and extended family. Born and raised in Bronx, NY, Antonius eventually moved to Houston before pursuing a BFA at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MIC/A).

Since graduating in 2016, Antonius has been fortunate to receive fellowships from the Vermont Studio Center, Kala Art Institute, Tulsa Artists Fellowship, Halcyon Arts Lab, Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, Yaddo, Anderson Center at Tower View, The Growlery, Jentel, and Fine Arts Work Center.

Antonius has exhibited at various institutional, private, public, and underground venues, including the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, IA&A at Hillyer, Lawndale Art Center, Pennsylvania College of Art & Design, Artscape, Satellite Art Fair Austin, Blaffer Art Museum, Laband Art Gallery, USC’s Pacific Asia Museum, Urban Institute of Contemporary Art, and Smithsonian Arts & Industries Building.

THERESA - XUAN BUI

Theresa-Xuan Bui (they/them) is a queer non-binary Vietnamese-American artist questioning the intersections of the personal and political as a means to critically imagine the future. Through drawing and dancing, they translate their embodied practice into a performance of language and sound. The work does not seek to answer or proclaim, but rather, openly and recklessly process the self within larger power structures. They are a princess of the Bui household, a legacy of Vietnamese refugees and vanguard Asian-Americans. Born and raised in Bronx, NY, Theresa moved to Houston, TX before pursuing a BFA at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MIC/A).

INTERVIEW # 6

Lehna: How do you and your communities best take care of yourselves and one another in the times we are living in?

Theresa: I am wordy and technical, I gotta define community and what we are living in. I just want to provide context. I am currently in a high contrast area from where I was living and working before in Baltimore.

I am currently in the Adirondacks and this is genuinely the most densely white rural place I have lived. It is very non-accessible to POC.

I actually came here for my own healing. It strikes a very interesting intersection of everything you are asking.

It really made me question why am I here? And what is my community?

Part of my own personal dream is to open up an artist residency and to have a space. I want to have a space for my artists and my loved ones and creators. I came for professional reasons and I have to seek out my own community. This space is not readily accessible for POC. I am not fully seen here. People have come to me to say “ you are the one who recognizes my humanity within this residency.

My community here are artists and fellow queer people that I encounter. Because I work for an artist residency, we are cycling through over 70 artists.The way I take care of myself and I show up for them as well is to just be real with them, because I am a facilitator in this space.

We have to be “ professional” . People come here expecting a residency. It is a double edged sword. I fully expect POC not to be seen in those ways because we are where we are.

It’s funny we mention work life balance because I take time to check in on POC/ queer people who come through. It requres bravery and going out of my way, lingering to listen for what else is there. I welcome them into the orientation.

For my community, I have to believe that they need extra care even if they dont ask for it. I have to extend myself. I do follow a semi script but for my community. I dont want to make assumptions, but I will extend myself even if I am slightly foolish. I care even though I may look foolish.

I have to heal myself and show up in odd places to be a support system for other anomalies here in this space.

Antonius: It's been really wonderful witnessing Theresa navigate the Adirondacks, this residency and being there for the people who come by. Theresa’s act of displacement forced them to discern what community is actually to them. In a capitalist society when everything is co-opted including the word community, it often takes tragedy and burnout to figure out who is there for you and who you are there for.

For instance, I found that Theresa was leaving the Adirondacks almost every weekend to drive out and be with their friends. Through calling and facetimeing, our relationship got better too.

It forces you to think about time - it is a full time job. Full time jobs instill a lot of discipline.

Lehna : What healing methods do you use in your daily practices of care?

Antonius: Time is such a limited resource in grind culture.

For me it is so rare that we are actually able to slow down and see each other where we are.

As adults in capitalistic society, just gathering with one another with no agenda is so rare.

I am trying to practice that more as an act of resistance.

Bearing witness to eachother throughout our many seasons. Just listening and not providing a solution.

Resisting trying to fix a solution. Just being with each other and how impossible that feels at times.

Can we sit together in silence? Can we text or call without planning?

Are we ok with walking in the park?

Doing activities that dont require spending money.

These have been very helpful gauges of who I desire to be around and what could potentially lead to long term friendship and community.

Theresa: You are speaking to non- transactionality.

Antonius: I am actively trying to dispel guilt and shame around not adhering to routine. Within myself and in extension with others.

Allowing myself flexibility, within ritual and ceremony, what methodologies I engage with.

Some days I need poetry, other days I need dance, poetry or snacking.

Similar to how we show up for one another. We give each other grace and understanding in order to share and claim our capacities even better.

I try my best to zoom out and understand things from a structural level.

Not taking things personally is important. This discomfort we might be feeling doesn’t have to deal with our friendship, but our capacity.

What we hope is that each of us has a good handful or two of people to surround ourselves with. Trusting that someone you love also has other loved ones.

The communication part is what I am still working on. I can hold a grudge when I dont articulate.

Theresa: A big part of the reason why I ended up in the Adirondacks was because of a break up. We had very different definitions of love and community- when we think about communities betwen Black and Asian people, queer communities practice a queer love- dismissing ideas of romantisicm, intimiacy and depth in my relationshionships.

Part of trying to live by that is not putting shame and guilt around my thoughts. Not creating naaratives in my head.

It is fun and intoxicating to develop narratives. To drop those naaratives is boring. But it is real - it is deeply healing to meet people where we are at.

People will drop in and out of our lives, and when they are ready they will come back in orbit romantically or not or as collaborators. For example, you came back in orbit.

In this moment if we drop into it - believe in the power of now.

To not create narratives means not allowing shame while inviting forgiveness and apologies that purely addresses the moment.

That is radical to me.

What does healing look like right now? Being the love of my own life and my primary partner and allowing for all kinds of love.

Lehna: Why are relationships between Black and Asian people important to you personally?

Antonius: Our history has shown time after time that we need each other and bring out the best in one another. So many of our power and freedom movements have been in conjunction or due to each other's efforts.

Something else I have thought about -

While Black and Asian are identity markers that provide a general compass, oftentimes we have to be even more specific.

Regardless of who we are in America, we are all capable of embodying and perpetuating whiteness. Especially in the Asian community, the model minority thing is so real.

The amount of Asian people that glorify whiteness and marry white people it's so disgusting. Separating themselves from their own cultures and practicing Anti- Blackness.

It is disgusting. Our own family members and us having to unlearn that too and constantly learning from those lessons and redownloading the information.

All of us are capable of producing and reproducing whiteness. It's important for us to learn about Black and Indigenous Power Movements - we wouldn’t be where we are today without our predecessors, collaborators and co- instagators.

AAPI rhetoric is so dissatisfying because so often we piggyback on the talk, language and theories of Blackness when it's not 1:1 ratio.

That unknowing and that place of potential excites me. We are hopefully developing the language today amidst the struggle.

Theresa : The Bui’s are super critical. We believe in a savage kind of love.

Lehna : This is all so wonderful, it feels like we swam into each other in the deep sea.

Theresa : People don’t know that they are an ocean.

Lehna: What healing methods do you use in your daily practices of care?

Theresa: In the theme of cutting through all the BS cuz there is so much of it. So much you can engage with we have to be a little selective it requires curation. It’s the people who keep me grounded.

Swimming through the deep waters - it feels more centered on my path on my growth.

It's the people who keep me grounded. It feels that more real.

Addressing nuances -are addressing the realness.

A lot of people dont want that realness and dont want to hear about it.They cut through all the Etcetera, learning the language when we need to be embodying it.

There is practice we need to put in. The people who want realness for realness who want family. Who want love. Who believe in love. Those are the relationships I believe in.

I did think about them a bit. It’s not the margins that keep us together. Our roots are connected elsewhere. This elsewhere- ness - I thought about a saddle in the in between and liminality we are reckoning with intertwining there is just so much we need to go through.

The realness of the relationships I find important are the ones I want to address.

To understand the love I want and feel, you have to understand the many ways we are pushed and pulled and conflicted. In my community, the people I align with recognize that.

They make me feel seen, alive and like my work is important and significant for those reasons. The people who just want to jump to the solution, thats not what I am in for.

These conversations and processing moments are what count.

Antonius: The margins make me think about how forced displacement oftentimes… Black and Asian artists, writers and theorists, etc., are the pillars of my foundation and continue to inform my shapeshifting.

From Audre Lorde, James Baldwin, Ocean Vuong, Mark Aguhar, Franny Choi - I have Lucille Clifton at all times now. That knowingness and solidarity.

"So then what is water? What can it be? The element, daily, ordinary, enduring. Extraordinary, shifting, expansive, A word for what one is thirsty for, desire. What can quench. What can be swum and what can not be swum. the Atlantic, Middle Passages. The distance between this and that. that which can be held for long in bare hands. But can be carried. The sky, the river, the rain, Knowing and unknowing. Ancestral. Elder. Our singular and plural and going on. " Lucille Clifton

Continue carrying one another through the devastation. One can only carry for so long, before they need help. It is a shared burden and it requires an alignment in how we define love, freedom and reconciliation.

For instance I got to work with Jess X Snow and work on a mural with them in New Haven. It was a mural for Ruth Wilson GIlmore, the abolitionist.

It is indescribable to live that solidarity. Being in public amaking and creating alongside a neighborhood leads to connections and creations. Presence with one another.

Lehna: How are you spending your time with yourself?

Antonius: Sitting in the discomfort is ok - reminding each other what we have and what we are building together.

If I cant get through this with the love of my life, how can we do this with the larger society?

We get through it and its only thanks to the extended community in our lives.I know but sometimes I want to be told by others.

Often it is other Black & Asian folks. Lets look at our responses and reactions, slowing down, redownloading.

Getting to know each other's histories. It really takes presence and conversation.

Theresa : What you are saying is real love. Really trying to see someone and intertwine.

A lot of the solidarity work is working together to fight up against something is a different kind of direction.

It's almost like mob mentality. It is hard to try to see anyone and be on the same wavelength.

That is the long lasting love that you are doing which I hope the creative community shares too.

There are different models of love. Communities should try to do that.

Lehna: Please share a word, phrase, blessings, or prayer that represents healing in your language.

Theresa: Nothing is lost. I felt self conscious being interdisciplinary and feeling nervous that I do many things like sound, sculpture, poetry. I feel like an imposter. I gravitate towards them because I do - its what I like.

Everything feeds into each other, I learned there is no need to dismiss myself. Learning to lean into my interdisciplinary nat7ure and applying it to my life. Reminding myself that I have time.

Antonius: Vietnamese term - Ôi trời ơi ! I say it a lot around other queer trans Vietnamese folks, like a drama - with exclamation marks! Ôi trời ơi embodies moods and occasions.

It can mean so many things,, a moment of judging like oh no you didn't.

INTERVIEW # 7: AKEMI

AKEMI KOCHIYAMA

Akemi Kochiyama ( she/ her ) is a Harlem-based writer and scholar-activist whose work is focused on education, community building and BIPOC solidarity. The granddaughter of human rights activist, Yuri Kochiyama, Akemi is co-director of the Yuri Kochiyama Solidarity Project and co-editor of Passing It On: A Memoir by Yuri Kochiyama. A doctoral candidate in cultural anthropology, her dissertation and research is about the impact of Yuri Kochiyama’s personal and political practice in support of human rights, radical solidarity and multicultural community building on BIPOC activists, educators and artists working in these areas today.

INTERVIEW # 7

Lehna: How do you and your communities best take care of yourselves and one another in the times we are living in?

Akemi: Akemi: I am a mother. An auntie. A niece and a cousin (of hundreds of cousins) - who stays in touch with my community a lot.

I come from two large families. My father is one of ten and my mother is one of six. Both really close families. Very supportive families. Very in touch.

So both families, especially my father’s family, we touch base daily. Most of us are here in New York. Whether it is actually seeing each other. Or talking. Or texting. We are always checking in on each other. I get constant texts: “Are you safe?” “Are you well?”

There is a lot of that in my family. It has always been that way. Lately, my family is asking "How are you?" all the time, in a real purposeful way. Especially now.

My grandmother on my father’s side, Khadijah - the matriarch and rock of our family – passed away recently in October. It was devastating for all of us.

She had 23 great grand children (including my kids) and 16 grandchildren (I am the eldest granddaughter). We are all still processing and grieving. On top of all the other things that are happening in the world, that is happening. And so we are all very aware of how fragile everyone is. And trying to really support each other.

Lehna: What healing methods do you use in your daily practices of care?

Akemi: I would say, I stay in community. But also a few other things…

I make art a lot. My family makes art a lot. A family of artists on both sides. Both my parents, some of their siblings, my own kids and my husband – all artists. We often make art together - sketches, cards, collages, all kinds of stuff.

I work in a school among activists and artists; many are feeling frustrated and are wanting to express feelings about everything that is happening. And really wanting to teach about what is happening.

Recently a teacher hosted an off campus school event where we could make art, even political art. It was a place to talk about what is happening in Palestine – in a very safe and open space – and to express our concerns artistically. It was really helpful for me to have that space to think through and reflect on these things and talk through it in community with people I trust and respect.

I also do a lot of cooking in community with people - family, extended family and neighbors. I am really lucky I have a neighbor who is a really good cook and she also has a catering business.

She is Central American and is always trying new things out. She often sends dishes over with her daughter. It’s very exciting. “Oh I just made this, what do you think?” “I have 3 different types!”

It is nice to be cooking and sharing with each other. Whether my neighbors or with my family. We eat and cook - both in joy and in competition. It’s another way we can heal, and have fun, and be really appreciative of food and each other.

I’d say, another thing we are intentional about as a family is trying to be reflective every day about how incredibly lucky we are. Being aware of what is happening in the world – on our block, our neighborhood, and in our community but also in the world. Trying to be intentionally reflective and grateful for all of those who make our lives possible - is really important.

Lehna: Why are relationships between Black and Asian people important to you personally?

Akemi : To be honest, my deep interest and understanding of relationships between Black and Asian people is strongly informed and influenced by my personal background.

My mothers side is Japanese American. My great grandparents came here from Japan. So I am fourth generation Japanese American, which we call Yonsei. My father’s side is Black and East Indian.

I always grew up identifying with my Japanese and Black backgrounds and cultures and I was always encouraged to do that. I never felt like those people who refer to themselves “part” or “half” something or “torn.” I never had that experience. I have always been able to live fully in my cultural identities. I was enabled and encouraged to do that by both sides of my family.

My grandmother on my father’s side, Khadijah, was a Black and East Indian woman who grew up in Manhattan’s Lower East Side. She was from a Muslim family; her first marriage was arranged when she was 15.

By the time of her passing, she had been married 5 times. She lived an incredible independent, unconventional, challenging and joyful life as a Muslim woman/ wife/mother/sister/auntie making her way in New York City. Most of her husbands were from different countries/cultures, so we grew up with a lot of awareness about identity and diversity and lots of inside jokes about our family’s mixed up background and vast extended family - and people’s misunderstandings of it. Like many Black families in America, my father’s family is multi-racial and multicultural, complex, and close knit.

On my mom’s side, both her parents were second-generation Japanese American citizens whose experiences of incarceration and displacement during WWII dramatically impacted their lives. While it didn’t politicize them immediately, it gave them a sense of themselves as non-White Americans and an awareness that other non-white law-abiding citizens had also faced unfair discrimination, loss and violence.

Coming back to NYC after WWII and eventually ending up in public housing in Harlem with 6 young children in 1960 led to my grandparents’ deep involvement in community building and working for human rights. They would always say that moving to Harlem at that time with their young family was fortuitous and transformative.

What my grandparents would learn through their participation in the Harlem Parents Committee and later the Harlem Freedom School and other organizations and movements they became involved with at that time is that what happened to Japanese Americans during World War II wasn’t a stand alone thing.

Through their proximity and experiences with Black people, my grandparents learned that there is a long history of violence, oppression and disenfranchisement of people of color in America and there are many ways that experiences and histories of Black and Asian people connect.

It made my grandmother hungry for more information and led to her involvement with a wide range of movements, organizations and communities, and people - including meeting Malcolm X and becoming a member of the Organization of Afro American Unity (OAAU) in 1963. That relationship and her education under his mentorship led to her deep commitment to Black liberation and working for human rights and radical solidarity for the rest of her life.

My parents were also both activists. So this experience of Black and Asian community and solidarity and social justice has always been part of my personal experience and my political disposition in the struggle against imperialism and white supremacy.

Personally, my experience is evidence that Black and Asians have been working and living together – not in conflict – for a long time and that the idea of Black-Asian conflict is an intentional purposeful white supremacist strategy motivated by imperial interests and fueled by a long history of purposeful stereotypes and misinformation that put Black and Asian people at opposite ends of the stereotypic spectrum - Asian as model minority vs. Black deviant.

This experience has informed my decision to be intentional in my work - to speak about and lift up the history and power of BIPOC solidarity in the struggle against white supremacy and imperialism and to deconstruct the divisive stereotypes about people of color in this country which continue to harm and polarize us.

I think my grandma Yuri’s most important legacy is about connecting people, communities, movements to each other. I believe that we have to continue to do that.

Observing all the love, support, mutual aid, and hospitality my grandparents and their extended communities gave to each other was enriching and joyous. Is has helped me to be open and understanding of people; to meet people where they are.

Yuri talked a lot about intentional polarization and that we must be extremely aware of the efforts to polarize us - racially, culturally, politically. It seems the level of polarization we are seeing now is unprecedented and threatens to overwhelm us. The times require radical solidarity and radical love.

Lehna: That and all of the immigration/ migration attacks on our communities in that way. It's really devastating as it all unfolds. The fear that it instills in people is this disbelief that this can happen in another community.

Akemi: It might not extend to people outside of your immediate community. Who might look like you or speak the same language. As we move into a totalitarian environment, this intensifies. Another cycle of that of that again. With the election and all of the things that are coming.

The solidarity is springing up, but it is fractured in a lot of ways although the want for solidarity is present.

Lehna: Please share a word, phrase, blessings, or prayer that represents healing in your language.

Akemi: I have been thinking about healing a lot and what it requires. My phrase would be radical love. There is so much pain and hate and misunderstanding in the world. We have to rise above that and resist the instinct to distance ourselves from each other. We have to build community and continue to educate ourselves and understand each other’s struggles so we can work together in solidarity and love.

OPENING HIGHLIGHTS

Images from Performance titled Untrapped, by Lehna Huie and Yalini Dream at Opening Reception based on the poem Untrapped, by Yalini Dream below.

Untrapped

Dark Ancient ones,

have you forgotten, we are universe?

Black depth, dusted with stars

Tiny, infinite

center of solar systems

where Africa and Asia meet.

Though flying from flags

bold and loud,

neither lion nor tiger remain of our lands.

Mirages, their allegiance to metal, stone fire,

unable to sustain.

Black Panthress secreted

in dense tropical forest

existence forgotten

covert wisdoms nursed

her black, brown, yellow cubs.

Predators build traps.

After slaughter, they skin, celebrate.

Putting hide on display,

Proclaiming the captured

killed, the last.

Their history sifts, shifts.

They declared you dead,

Your cubs birth cubs

The extinct mutates, evolves, rises, untrapped

spotted bursting freedom

magnetizing kin

heralding forest wisdoms

allegiance pledged to earth, water, seed,

Awaken memory.

We are universe.

Dark, ancient

Black depth, dusted with stars.

A still from To Move Mountains, a film directed by Lehna Huie, and featured in the Divine Intervention Installation - where 3 revolutionaries share their herstories, inspiring generations to live in their truth.

LEHNA HUIE

Lehna Huie is a multidisciplinary artist and cultural worker of Jamaican heritage from New York City. Huie works in painting, installation and video on diaspora, memory and fragmentation - creating atmospheric portraits that document her lineage. Huie weaves multimedia patchworks expressing vignettes of self, familial ancestry and global Black history - while in dialogue with notions of liberation, migration and decolonization.Trained through the Joan Mitchell Foundation, her practice includes work as a Legacy Specialist, preserving intergenerational artists archives and oral histories. She was also a Bandung Residency Cohort 2 artist with MOCADA and A4 in 2023. Learn more about the Bandung Residency program HERE.

YALINI DREAM

Yalini Dream is a New York based award-winning multidisciplinary artist whose work spans poetry, storytelling, theater, voice acting, music, dance, and political activism. Yalini conjures spirit seeking peace through justice in lands of earth, psyche, body, and dream. In addition to featuring at Ivy League Universities and gracing esteemed venues such as the Lincoln Center, YaliniDream has shared stages with icons such as Harry Belafonte and Arch Bishop Desmond Tutu. Most recently Yalini co-narrated the audio book The ABC’s of Queer History with Pose actor Indya Moore. Over three decades, Yalini has performed, lectured, and collaborated globally, bringing stories of the journey to total liberation to life.

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