January 2023 AIR EVENT
SHARE SPACE: A PANEL DISCUSSION WITH AIR NATASHA MOUSTACHE IN CONVERSATION WITH LOCAL ARTISTS ZAKKIYYAH NAJEEBAH DUMAS-O’NEAL, ANWULIKA INAIGO ANIGBO, AND JESS ATIENO
Call To Serve, 2020
Share Space: A Panel Discussion with AIR Natasha Moustache in conversation with local artists zakkiyyah najeebah dumas-o’neal, Anwulika Inaigo Anigbo, and Jess Atieno
January 26th, 6:30 pm - 7:30 pm
at LATITUDE Chicago ( 1821 W. Hubbard Street, Suite 207, Chicago, IL 60622 )
Latitude’s January resident, Natasha Moustache, has created a series titled “Under The Same Sun '' which details the communities they live near and engage with. Chicago has a rich Black American and African artist community and Natasha feels it's imperative to highlight a diverse range of photographic voices that share intersecting ideas and influences.
For their public program, they will be in conversation with local artists zakkiyyah najeebah dumas-o’neal, Anwulika Inaigo Anigbo, and Jess Atieno to discuss their work, current issues faced by emerging BIPOC artists, and ways that local DIY galleries and community spaces are currently supporting under-represented artists.
This will be the first program in a series of conversations highlighting community building amongst BIPOC image and photo artists.
NATASHA MOUSTACHE
Natasha Moustache is a photographic artist based in Chicago. Moustache’s work reflects their experience as a first-generation, Seychellois-American and explores the interconnectedness and transnationality of the Black Diaspora. Their work regularly engages strangers as collaborator-participants. Natasha’s work has been exhibited at the Houston Center for Photography, the International Center for Photography, and the Center for Photography at Woodstock where they were an Artist in Residence. Most recently Moustache received the Snider Prize from the Museum of Contemporary Photography. Moustache holds a BFA from Simmons College (2004) and an MFA from Columbia College Chicago (2021) where they received the 2019 Stuart Abelson Travel Fellowship.
Panelist Bios
ANWULIKA ANIGBO
anwulikaanigbo@gmail.com
Anwulika Anigbo (b. Nigeria 1987) is a Chicago-based artist tracing the historical and somatic roots of everyday life as it is practiced within blackness through imagery and processes. Her work chronicles and investigates self-determination, presence, knowledge production, and memory. Anigbo uses deep embodiment to make meaning at the intersections of life by rooting her practice in creation as a continuous process of personal and domestic liberation.
Anwulika’s work has been exhibited at The Czong Institute for Contemporary Art (South Korea), Chicago Artist Coalition(Chicago), EXPO Chicago with FOR FREEDOMS (Chicago) and the Chicago Athletic Association (Chicago). She was recently a 2022-23 Fellow with the Economic Security Project, the December 2022 and January 2023 Artist in Residence at Chicago Athletic Association, a 2021-22 Artist in Residence at the Chicago Artist Coalition, and a 2022 3Arts Ignite Fund Awardee. Her work is included in the collection at Ryan Lee Gallery, 21c Museum and private collections.
Anwulika is also the founder of The Love Ethic Project which channels creative resources towards the production of a love ethic through direct discourse and action.
ZAKKIYYAH NAJEEBAH DUMAS-O’NEAL
zakkiyyah.najeebah@gmail.com
Instagram: @zakkiyyah.najeebah
zakkiyyah najeeabah dumas-o’neal is an artist, educator, curator, and arts organizer whose work is most often initiated by personal and social histories related to family, queer identities, self interiority, and belonging. Within her projects there’s an overlying theme of trying to make sense of, and complicating what and who she belongs across time, location, and space.
zakkiyyah has been included in numerous group exhibitions and has had several solo exhibitions at Mana Contemporary, Blanc Gallery, Indiana University, and South Bend Museum of Art. Her work has been presented in various forms at Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, NADA, The Art Institute of Chicago, The August Wilson African American Cultural Center, Chicago Humanities Festival, DePaul University, and Harvard Graduate School of Design to name a few. She has also curated exhibitions at spaces such as Chicago Art Department, Blanc gallery and Washington Park Arts Incubator at the University of Chicago. She was a 2021 Artist in Residence at Arts and Public Life at University of Chicago, a 2021 Artist in Residence at Indiana University in Bloomington, IN, and a recent 2022 3Arts Gary & Denise Gardner Fund Awardee.
zakkiyyah is a co-founder and organizer of CBIM (Concerned Black Image Makers): a collective of Black artists, thinkers, and curators that prioritize shared experiences and concerns by lens based artists of the Black diaspora.
JESS ATIENO
atienojess@gmail.com
Jess Atieno (b.91, Kenya ) maintains a practice informed by inquiries on place, home and dispossession through the lens of the post-colonial. Atieno sees herself as carrying inscriptions of a colonial past and studying as an adult in the US made her increasingly unable to situate herself in a static reality of belonging. With this inspiration, Atieno time travels into history through its material remains: historical photographs, maps and documents, employing them in prints, installations and tapestries.
Atieno has graduated with an MFA at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She currently lives and works in Chicago, USA. Atieno also founded the Nairobi Print Project, an open source online library for artistic and curatorial research informed by African colonial and diaspora histories. The library will be the first of its kind in the region
Recent exhibitions: Ubuntu, I am because We Are, World Trade Organization Headquarters, (Geneva, 2022);Of Ghostly Silences and Constant Yearnings, Galerie Cécile Fakhoury (Abidjian, 2022); I Will See What I Want to See, Circle Art Gallery, (Nairobi, 2019); 730 Servings of Yesterday’s Terror, Lagos Biennale (Lagos, 2019); The Making of Worlds, Festung Hohensalzburg, (Salzburg, 2019).