2025 Earthseed Cohort

Answering the Ancestral Call!

This cohort is embarking on an intellectually artistic exploration of trans-generational healing and future world making through cultural preservation. What’s possible when Black people intentionally build a community of care in order to grapple with questions of healing, remembrance, legacy and ancestral power? What are we being called to remember at this time? What are we being called to create at this time?

Amari Amai, he/they

Amari Amai is a black transmasculine poet, actor, and educator, born and raised in Chicago. They have been a poet in residence with the Chicago Poetry Center, a Watering Hole ‘23 fellow, and a Periplus Collective ’24 fellow. Their work has received support and fellowships from Tin House, Sundress Academy for the Arts, and Vermont Studio Center. As a Great Migration baby with roots in Jackson, Mississippi, their work can be described as “queer Southern Gothic” with Afrofuturist influence. Amari is the founder of Crossroads Writers Collective, a communal writing group for Black queer folks based in Chicago. As a 2025 Pushcart Prize and 2025 Best Small Fictions Nominee, they are currently at work on their debut poetry collection, with poems published in beestung magazine, Verse Daily, and Callaloo Journal. You can find out more about the interdisciplinary artist at www.amariamai.com.

amber skye arnold, she/her

amber skye arnold has been in a life long praxis of embodiment, somatics, ancestral healing, herbalism, farming & gardening, Black womanist teachings, ceremony, ritual, and cultural reclamation. her work is deeply rooted in revolutionary mothering (asé alexis pauline gumbs) and Black womanist parables, weaving earth-based practices, ancestral reclamation, and embodied rituals. she is a partner, daughter, and mama of 3 wisdom keepers and the cofounder and collaborative director of SUSU commUNITY Farm, a 37 acre afroindigenous farm rooted in the Black womanist beliefs of our collective ancestors.

Asha Grant, she/her

Asha is a lover, keeper, and space maker for the stories of Black women, femmes, and gender expansive folks across time. A native Angeleno, her people have strong roots in Philadelphia, New Jersey, Detroit, and Alabama. Her creative practice works with and for the Black Archive.

Crystal Monds, she/they

Crystal Monds is a BlaQueer Southern-born healing practitioner and visual artist whose cultural ties to Creole and Deep South identities inform her work to better serve, center, and nurture gender-marginalized folks in their community. Crystal’s creative work centers the exploration of everyday experiences, joy, and self-reflection while honoring the lessons and rituals of ancestors.

Ebony Aya, she/her/hers

Ebony Aya works at Macalester College as a Program Manager for the Jan Serie Center for Scholarship and Teaching. She is a recent doctoral graduate from the University of Minnesota in Curriculum and Instruction, with minors in Culture and Teaching and African American and African Studies. In her work, she focuses on the experience of Black women in higher education and centering African ways of knowing in our pedagogies. Additionally, she is the founder of the Aya Collective Publishing, a space that centers the expertise and experience of Black women in writing and is the author of published books, Reconsidering Eve: Towards a Deepened Consciousness and Incomplete Stories: On Loss, Love, and Hope. All books can be purchased at ayamediapublishingllc.com.

Erin Trent Johnson, she/her/we

Erin Trent Johnson, MPA, CPC, is a transformational leadership coach and visionary storyteller whose work blends art, spirit, and earth-honoring healing traditions. As the founder of Community Equity Partners, Erin reimagines leadership and systems to cultivate wellness, health, and abundant life for all beings and the planet. She is also the creatrix of BlackMamaBody, a wisdom lab for embodied education and art. With nearly two decades of leadership development, community organizing, and healing justice program management experience, Erin weaves trauma-informed coaching and historical context into transformational learning experiences. Her work invites deep presence, radical imagination, and connection to body, spirit, and ancestral wisdom. A certified coach and mentor coach, Erin holds a BS in Political Science from Hampton University and a Masters in Public Administration from the University of Pennsylvania. Rooted in Philadelphia’s rich legacy of Black kinship, she resides there with her partner, Ajamu, and their daughter, Maya.

Gwendolyn Rogers, they/them

Gwendolyn (They/Them), is a Brooklyn based Black non-binary transmasculine creative. Outside of their professional role as a legal and executive administrator and board member, they enjoy collaborating on productions in the tv and film space. A natural storyteller, they are exploring mediums to creatively share Black histories.

Harlem West, they/them

harlem west is a queer interdisciplinary artist, poet, and psalmist from out south Chicago. they explore rebirth, collective memory, and ancestral veneration through film and mixed media play. harlem re-works their poems into visual relics and audio mixes in dedication to sankofa & sonic communion. at their center, harlem is an eldest sibling doing their best to honor all their grieving and the name they momma gave 'em. their poetry has been published in the Chicago Reader & APOGEE journal.

Jasmine Clarke, she/her

Jasmine is an artist and family archivist who sees archives as living tools for healing, connection, and liberation. She currently works as a processing archivist at Afro Charities, preserving the AFRO American Newspapers Archives. Her passion for archiving began as an act of love and grief—stewarding her late grandmother’s belongings and creating a family archive in her honor. This journey led her to found HUEline Archives, a project exploring the intersections of Black grief, memory, and creative expression while providing resources for those seeking to use archives for healing. Through her work, Jasmine invites Black people to participate in the storytelling of their histories and develops methodologies that make Black archival work more accessible and reflective. She earned a Bachelor's degree in Art History from Wheaton College in Massachusetts and is a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant alumna. She is honored to be a part of the Earthseed Black Family Archive Project.

Patience Ankomah, she/her

Patience Ankomah is a crafter, cultural worker, and archivist from Maryland based in Brooklyn. In 2017, she founded Adobea Archive, a digital project turned repository dedicated to highlighting the lives, cultures, and histories of Black people globally. Her work centers on building an archive that explores Black aesthetics and lineages through time, using a mix of personal and family histories and found images and materials from the 19th century to the present. Through Adobea Archive, Patience explores the connections between Black identity, cultural memory, and how creativity, collecting and craft have sustained and transformed communities across generations.

Queen Tolson, She/her

Queen Drea is a sound alchemist, mixing sonic potions laced with looped vocals, jagged rhythms, and found sounds. She has designed sonic worlds for PH+T’s productions of What to Send Up, When it Goes Down, The Great Divide 3&4, Penumbra Theater’s For Colored Girls…, Spittin Seeds, Minnesota Children’s Theater’s Locomotion, and dance companies, BrotherHood Dance, and Ananya Dance Theater. She has created work about depression in the Black community, African creator goddess Mawu, and an exploration of what life comes From Black Wombs. Queen is a 2022 McKnight Composer Fellow, 2019 PH+T Naked Stages Fellow, 2019 Jerome Finalist, and 2017 ACF Emerging Composer awardee.

Shankaron Hassan, he/him/they/them

Shankaron Hassan is a storyteller and aspiring filmmaker living in Minneapolis, Minnesota (traditional Dakota territory). He was raised between London, England, and Xamar, Somalia, with ancestors hailing from Jijiga, Dire Dawa, and Galkacyo. Shankaron is grounded by their loves for found family, cue sports, fishing, and climbing. Their work explores questions of bodily autonomy and spiritual possession in Trans bodies and following the remnants of our dreams to find our next footing.. using these shells to piece together new stories of transformation and healing. They continue to see the importance of documentation and archiving in these transitional spaces. He is a proud Black and Transgender Somali migrant, as well as a farmer, carpenter, and arts&crafter.

Vynetta A. Morrow, she/her

Relationship Builder & Visionary Strategist. Vynetta A. Morrow, a relationship builder, visionary strategist, community engagement specialist, historian, educator, and storyteller, communes with the ancestors and imagine a liberated world. She is an Urban Bush Women Summer Leadership Institute 2014 fellow where her poem Congo River Dreams was featured. Vynetta’s family research focuses on regional St. Louis, Missouri history, as well as the Black American South with a particular interest in Tennessee, Mississippi, and the Carolinas. Vynetta serves on the weCollab Plan Implementation Team centering resident-led community development and was awarded a mini-grant for her upcoming program, Roots of Love & Belonging: Storytelling In Our Park, after completing the Neighborhood Leadership Academy Fall 2024 cohort (University of Missouri Extension). With a Bachelor’s of Arts in History from University of Missouri - St. Louis. Vynetta has completed graduate coursework in restorative justice, education, and library science. She once lived in Jubilee Hall!

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