Sundress Academy for the Arts Presents "Mythologizing Our Climate Futures"

The Sundress Academy for the Arts is excited to present “Mythologizing Our Climate Futures,” a workshop led by Ashia Ajani on July 12, 2023, from 6-7:30 PM. This event will be held over Zoom. Participants can access the event at tiny.utk.edu/sundress (password: safta).

This workshop will use climate writing and art by members of the African Diaspora to inform young people’s own climate narratives. This workshop is designed for writers who are interested in developing their use of imagery. This workshop will use African and Caribbean mythology to understand how different diasporic people have interpreted natural disasters and climate impacts for millennia, and what we can learn from these myths.

We will also look at the art of Eddy Kamaunga Illuga, whose imagery around colonization and the exploitation of African nations under capitalism and the climate crisis holds powerful insight for understanding how apocalyptic conditions have plagued the African diaspora in an anti-Black world. Participants will leave the workshops with written drafts, ancestral knowledge, and environmental futures.

While there is no fee to participate in this workshop, those who are able and appreciative may make donations directly to Ashia Ajani via Venmo @ashiainbloom, PayPal through ashiaajani22@gmailcom, or CashApp at $Ashiainbloom.

Ashia Ajani is a Black storyteller hailing from Denver, CO, Queen City of the Plains, and the unceded territory of the Cheyenne, Ute, Arapahoe, and Comanche Peoples. Ajani is a 2022 Just Buffalo Literary Center Poetry Fellow, and a Pushcart Prize nominated poet and writer with words in Atmos Magazine, Sierra Magazine, Frontier Poetry, and World Literature Today, among others. Ajani received their Master’s in Environmental Management from Yale School of the Environment in 2021. Their debut poetry collection, Heirloom, is forthcoming in the spring of 2023 with Write Bloody Publishing. Follow them on the socials @ashiainbloom or on their website, ashiaajani.com.

This workshop is brought to you in part by a grant provided by the Tennessee Arts Commission. Find out about the important work they do here.