Meet the Artist 2025: Roberto Fatal on “En Memoria”

Greetings, Loved Ones! 

Reaching out to share and bring you information on some of my current, recent, as well as Upcoming Movimiento Charcoalfoot Travels and opportunities to connect, share, and support! 

On 8.13.25, Weaving Spirits Festival of Two Spirit Performance will be screening a beautiful action, drama full-length feature film Ponyboi; written, produced & starring Indigequeer y Salvadorian Intersex Advocate, relative  River Gallo! 

The screening will happen at AMC Kabuki 8, in Historic S.F. Japantown on August 13th at 7 pm,  we only have 30 tix until selling out: 

Ponyboi Kabuki 8 

This is my 1st venture leading a fundraiser as resident co-producer with WS alongside the Phenomenal Leadership and Love of J. Miko Thomas {Landa Lakes} and Javier Stell-Fresquez at Weaving Spirits ( Please click and Learn more about these PowerHouse relatives and the Necessary International & Intergalactic work they lead across the globe! Please note that if you have space to provide towards this fundraising event, please dedicate tax-deductible gifts to Weaving Spirits directly.  Thank you to all who have already supported us this past week. 

I am grateful to my community peers and mentors at BAAITS for receiving my heart & dedicated time as a guest here in Yelamu & Huichin. Since our connection in '22 I have been supported as an Artist/ Culture Bearer grantee, Community Fellow in part with the San Francisco Human Rights Commision funding, and in the capacity of an on call Consultant over my time migrating in between Sacramento/Bay and alas transitioning my base to Oakland,  here at Studio Amaru52 (more to share in due time). 

A nod also to Luna Dance & Creativity, as I have recently completed my Dance & Justice Artist Residency supported by a grant from the San Francisco Foundation. 

A huge thank you to Roberto Fatal & Ali Meyers -Ohki for their guiding light and welcoming me back into my film / et. al journey as actor/ producer. We are celebrating the Sundance Indigenous Film Lab National Tour of the latest film they both wrote and produced, which was shot in Sacramento!  visit En Memoria,  and last but not least, we offer a link to check out River Gallo in DO DIGITAL CURANDERAS USE EGGS IN THEIR LIMPIAS. Please enjoy, however we ask you to be in contact to request any sharing, please y thank you. 

Thank you for your tiempo y energia-

Simpre con Amor,

yAyA

Remembering ‘Mama Gerri’ Oliver & Chicago’s legendary Palm Tavern

"Art is Business"  This project was funded by DCASE-NAP 2023 Awardee. 

Mural dedicated to the late Gerri Oliver- Remembering ‘Mama Gerri’ Oliver & Chicago’s legendary Palm Tavern,  by artist Alpha Bruton. 

 Join us on Friday, September 20, 2024, as we celebrate the season's last Bronzeville Art District Trolley Tour. The film screenings will begin at dusk and conclude at 9 p.m. at 436 E. 47th Street. The film screening is a pop-up temporary installation curated by the Phantom Gallery Chicago and film project manager Suzetta Withtaker. WTTW is a PBS member television station in Chicago, Illinois, United States.

  CHICAGO — There’s an empty lot near the corner of Martin Luther King Drive and 47th Street in Chicago’s historic Bronzeville neighborhood. It’s been vacant for nearly two decades since the culturally significant Palm Tavern was torn down in the name of progress and urban renewal.  

Longtime owner Gerri Oliver, a Bronzeville icon, died last December at 101.  

Feb 12, 2021 / 05:04 AM CST

“I felt it was just such a travesty the way the Palm Tavern was closed, and she left without any commemoration, without any celebration — the Palm Tavern should have had monumental status,” said Grammy-nominated blues musician Billy Branch, who wrote a song to commemorate the longtime owner and legendary nightspot, “Going to see Miss Gerri one more time.”

The Palm Tavern opened in 1933. Prohibition had just ended.

“It was the first tavern on the street, first place on the street that could legitimately sell liquor,” said Timuel Black, a prominent Chicago historian.  

“Genial” Jim Knight — the honorary mayor of Bronzeville — was the first owner. He named the spot after the palm trees of an African desert oasis.  Oliver took over for Knight and ran the Palm Tavern for nearly 50 years.  

 

Have you seen the new mural in Bronzeville?

Check out the impressive new mural on the container behind 'The Great Migration Sculpture Garden'! It boasts 3 works by Marlene Campbell, Alpha Bruton, and Andre Guichard, honoring the African Diaspora and the movements of Black People in Africa and to places like Bronzeville. The mural also pays homage to the historic Palm Tavern and jazz improvisation. Joe Cujo expertly created the graphic fusion and vinyl wrap installation.

The mural was completed with a grant from the City of Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs.

Andre Guichard, artist

 Joe Cujo expertly created the graphic fusion and vinyl wrap installation.

Marlene Campbell, artist

Tactical Urbanism in the Horizontal Landscape Short Film Screenings- Featured Renee' Baker

"Art is Business"   Join us on Friday, September 20th, 2024, as we celebrate the season's last Bronzeville Art District Trolley Tour. The film screenings will begin at dusk and conclude at 9 p.m. 

436 E. 47th Street, the film screening is a popup temporary installation. 

Phantom Gallery Chicago- Film Projection Project Manager Suzetta Withtaker

Featured Artist Renee Baker

Film 1: The Black Fertile Mind

The Black Fertile Mind is an exploration of boundless creativity, celebrating the intellect, resilience, and innovation of Black thought. This film interweaves evocative visuals with a dynamic score by Renee C. Baker, performed by the Chicago Modern Orchestra Project and the Modern Black Music Ensemble. The soundtrack melds elements of avant-garde jazz, experimental chamber music, and abstract soundscapes, reflecting the depth and complexity of the Black artistic imagination. As the film unfolds, it delves into the vast landscapes of Black intellectual history, presenting a narrative that is at once historical and visionary. The visuals are complemented by the sonic textures that highlight the journey of ideas, inventions, and artistic expressions born from a fertile cultural legacy.

Film 2: EMAK 1

EMAK 1 is a sensory journey into the enigmatic and the surreal, guided by Renee C. Baker's innovative score. This experimental film embraces the abstraction of thought and form, creating a dreamlike narrative that defies traditional storytelling. The Chicago Modern Orchestra Project and the Modern Black Music Ensemble provide a sonic tapestry that oscillates between ethereal atmospheres and dissonant crescendos, reflecting the film's exploration of consciousness and the unknown. The visuals are a montage of abstract shapes, shifting patterns, and fleeting images, inviting viewers to immerse themselves in the subconscious and question the boundaries between reality and illusion.

Film 3: EMAK 2

EMAK 2 continues the exploration of the surreal begun in its predecessor, deepening the immersion into an auditory and visual world that is both mysterious and profound. The score, crafted by Renee C. Baker and brought to life by the Chicago Modern Orchestra Project and the Modern Black Music Ensemble, is an intricate composition that blends dissonance with harmony, creating a soundscape that feels simultaneously familiar and alien. The film navigates themes of transformation and transcendence, using its avant-garde aesthetic to challenge perceptions and provoke thought. The visuals, a fluid collage of moving images, mirror the music's complexity, crafting an experience that is introspective, meditative, and ever-evolving.

BIO

Renee' C. Baker is a towering figure in multidisciplinary artistry, transcending the boundaries of music, visual art, film, and composition with unparalleled finesse. Her creative journey unfolds like an epic saga, with over 2000 orchestral and chamber ensemble compositions serving as a testament to her boundless imagination and relentless pursuit of innovation.

As the founding music director and conductor of the Chicago Modern Orchestra Project (CMOP), Baker orchestrates a symphony of genres, seamlessly weaving classical elegance with the improvisational spirit of jazz. Her conducting styles, both traditional and gestural, are modes of transformation, conjuring surreal landscapes where sonic and visual realms intertwine in a mesmerizing dance. A true Renaissance artist, Baker's canvas knows no limits as she melds movement, film projections, and sound into a breathtaking tapestry of sensory delight. Her compositions and film scores invite exploration and interpretation, blurring the lines between classicism and experimentation, subjectivity and objectivity.

Baker's influence extends far beyond her compositions. With the same fervor she brings to her craft, she nurtures and cultivates new ensembles. From the Mantra Blue Free Orchestra to the Bleueblue Walkers/Bass Kollektief, her ensembles forge new paths in the ever-evolving landscape of contemporary music.

Baker's most profound legacy lies in her gestural conducting language, CCL/FLOW, a symphony of movements that transcends words, guiding ensembles through her painted score exploratorium pieces. In her hands, music becomes not just a performance but a transcendent experience, a journey into the unknown where every note is a brushstroke.

The formation of WABI HOUSE MEDIA and Relinquish Cinema has resulted in music scores for over 500 silent and 100 experimental films, all with original scores crafted by Baker and the Chicago Modern Orchestra Project.

A visual artist, film artist, composer, and recontextualiser, Baker is a true engineer of multi-disciplines. Layering movement and film projections, she creates an exquisite arena of surrealistic activity within a sonic theatre. Her compositions, crafted with careful construction, allow indeterminacy, experimentalism, classicism, subjectivity, and objective interpretations to coexist. Both performer and audience are cast into unknown roles, inhabiting a temporary environment of limitless potential.

"Exercising Creative Agency"

Renee' C. Baker, PhD.

Artistic Director / Conductor

Chicago Modern Orchestra Project

Modern Black Music Ensemble

Producer- Wabi House Media

Editor- YUGEN Imprint

reneebaker@comcast.net

RICHARD HUNT SCULPTOR

"Art is Business" was reposted by Alpha Bruton and produced by the Kavi Gupta Gallery on January 22, 2024.

Video by Charlie Ahearn, Music composed by T.J. Anderson, Video production by Alitash Kebebe and Charlie Ahearn.

Kavi Gupta amplifies the voices of diverse and underrepresented artists to expand the canon of art history. We foster an evolving conversation among international communities about art and ideas through innovative and ambitious exhibitions, multimedia programming, and rigorous publications. Communities create culture, and representation is a step towards inclusivity and justice. Equity in the art field starts with everyone getting a seat at the table, but it does not end there. We offer a platform to artists whose vitality expands and deepens the cultural conversation, especially if a voice has been marginalized due to their identity, social or political perspective, or aesthetic position.

Links

Kavi Gupta

kavigupta.com

Kavi Gupta | Editions

kaviguptaeditions.com

Mixed Media Podcast

open.spotify.com/show/6hqEpK9cJivbE6TkaLw3AI

Kavi Gupta on Instagram

instagram.com/kavigupta_

Tactical Urbanism in the Horizontal Landscape. "Soundscape Tapestry"

Artist in Residence Programs Tactical Urbanism Music Soundscapes

Reggie Nicholson-Drummer, Percussionist, Composer The instantly recognizable style and sound of Reggie Nicholson has elevated him to one of the most distinctive, inventive, and inspirational drummer/percussionists of his generation; a formidable technician, but one who uses his considerable skills constructively and with infinite taste.

Tactical Urbanism, in the Horizontal Landscape, "Soundscape Tapestry."  This collaborative project will utilize sound and visual art in a public installation. Soundscape Tapestry will echo the African-American music experience unique to the sounds of Chicago. In addition, they are introducing a new sector of experimental film projections in the public space, curated by Alpha Bruton, ambitious new video projections of current artworks created during the residency project. Two thousand twenty-two project plans are to host and collaborate with composer Reggie Nicholson and develop platforms for exploration and creating new works.

They are using tactical urbanism and contributing to the horizontal landscape to expose pedestrians and tourists to the experience of what is viewed inside the gallery. Will create a dynamic platform for large-scale installations, moving image works, and sound performances, which did not have a dedicated space at the Bronzeville Art District Trolley Tours in prior years. Music and performances from collaborating artists accompany all the projections. Artist in Residence Programs, Tactical Urbanism, Music, and Soundscapes are some of the key elements of Reggie Nicholson's work. As a drummer, percussionist, and composer, Nicholson has developed a unique and recognizable style that has earned him a reputation as one of the most inventive and inspirational musicians of his generation. He is a formidable technician who uses his considerable skills constructively and tastefully.

One of Nicholson's latest collaborative projects is called "Soundscape Tapestry." This project combines sound and visual art in a public installation that aims to showcase the African-American music experience unique to the sounds of Chicago. To achieve this, the project will use tactical urbanism and contribute to the horizontal landscape to expose pedestrians and tourists to the experience of what is viewed inside the gallery.

The project will also introduce a new sector of experimental film projections in the public space, curated by Alpha Bruton, showcasing ambitious new video projections of current artworks created during the residency project. The 2022 project plans are to host and collaborate with Reggie Nicholson and develop platforms for exploration and creating new works.

This project aims to create a dynamic platform for large-scale installations, moving image works, and sound performances that did not have a dedicated space at the Bronzeville Art District Trolley Tours in prior years. All the projections will be accompanied by music and performances from collaborating artists. 

SOUNDSCAPE TAPESTRY EXPERIMENTAL FILM SERIES

"Art is Business" 

JOIN US ON FRIDAY, JULY 21, 2023, FOR AN EVENING OF EXPERIMENTAL FILM DURING THE BRONZEVILLE ART DISTRICT TROLLEY TOUR. FEATURING TACTICAL URBANISM IN THE HORIZONTAL LANDSCAPE-- SOUNDSCAPE TAPESTRY.

Alpha Bruton, lead artist, and the Phantom Gallery Chicago is my curatorial practice. I'm collaborating with composer and musician Reggie Nicholson. This project is designed as an intensive experience.

We are creating a work with an interdisciplinary approach and will present the final product during community programming. This project occurs in and around the Bronzeville community, collecting sounds from the horizontal landscape to produce the Soundscape Tapestry.

CEFF 

Featured Speaker: Ife Olatunji

Topic: Collective Voices Ethnographic Film Festival Preview

Olatunji is a visual anthropologist, documentary filmmaker, and film critic. Born into a family of artists and activists, she graduated from Syracuse University with a BA in Anthropology ('06) and a minor in photography and African American History. Ife completed her MA in Visual Anthropology from the University of Manchester, UK ('10) after creating a short documentary on daily life for girls in Rajasthan, India. She has since lived in Chicago, teaching documentary and film production to youth as young as 6 to adults at community centers and The Art Institute of Wisconsin. She has been a media educator with Facets Multimedia for the past four years, teaching media literacy, narrative editing, and documentary filmmaking. As a Diverse Voices in Documentary fellow with Kartemquin, Ife developed her own short observational film and worked with others to produce and edit their projects. Ife has continued to work with The Community Film Workshop, Reel Black Filmmakers, and Collected Voices: Chicago's Ethnographic Film Festival. An advocate for diversity and inclusion, Ife believes race and gender should not be categories of film festivals but rather the very topics film seeks to explore: www.collectedvoicesfilmfest.com.

Raymond A. Thomas, Studio/Film 12 MINUTES | 2001

CINEMA

N'spire Entertainment Inc. is the film and video production subsidiary of Raymond A. Thomas Studios.

In 2000, Raymond A. Thomas wrote, directed, and produced his first film project, 12 MINUTES. The 30-minute film short was an official selection to over 20 film festivals worldwide, winning numerous awards and honors. The film, which deals with the issues of mass incarceration and the death penalty, continues to be used in community arts engagement efforts with screenings in correctional facilities nationwide. Thomas has written over a half dozen feature screenplays, several of which have been optioned by major motion picture studios. In 2013, Thomas won an EMMY for serving as an associate producer on the documentary COLORBLIND: Rethinking Race, which aired on television station WYCC in Chicago.

Lavon N. Pettis, project manager for the 2023 Phantom Gallery Chicago Tactical Urbanism Film Series.

A Published ethnographer/researcher with program development, piloting, pre and post-evaluation, and background for hire. Civic and community engagement project manager. Best practices, technical savvy, and additional perks include negotiation. Skills include but are not limited to infrastructure setup, operations, lead planning, special events, capacity building, arts, and entertainment. Career experience includes public/social policy strategist, state director, sponsorship procurement, and fundraising.

Revitalizing the Soul and the Neighborhood through Art

"Art is Business" repost for Theaster Gates Art Place, written by Tim Halbur

"..The project is part of a larger intervention in the community by visual artist and urban planner Theaster Gates, whose art has been included in the Whitney Biennial, the New York Armory Show, and the Inax Ceramic Museum of Japan. In addition to his arts pedigree, Gates has a master’s degree in urban planning and a passion for revitalizing neighborhoods like Grand Crossing."

http://urbanland.uli.org/Articles/2012/June/ul/HalburArt#.UD5EdEiuUY5.mailto

 

 

Built in 1888, this once-vacant house
on the South Side of Chicago
has been renovated inside and out
to serve as the Library and Archive
House, holding a collection of art and
architectural books.
Credit: Propellerfund

 

http://urbanland.uli.org/Articles/2012/June/ul/HalburArt#.UD5EdEiuUY5.mailto

Two-story building on South
Dorchester Street is being renovated
to serve as the Black Cinema House.
All rights reserved Rebuild Foundation