2023 Summer Solstice Oasis in The Woods:
An Art & Wellness Festival
Friday, June 16, 2023, 6-9 pm
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/oasis-in-the-woods-an-arts-wellness-festival-tickets-638393942467
"2023 Summer Solstice: The Land" is a living creative, and cultural experiment with sustainable practice at its center. It incubates the artist's and community's personal and collective transformation.
For one week, June 12-16, 2023, artists of diverse disciplines and ages will converge at Juniper's Garden for a week-long residency. Their collective goal is to build generational bridges while working with ideas and materials that emanate from the land to create installations that answer the question, "How we will rebuild our communities to be stronger and recreate sustainable places to live." Importantly, this conversation addresses environmental justice's physical and psychological dimensions and impact. The residency will occur in Maryland's Prince George's County, the Southernmost region, and its remaining rural tier.
On Friday, June 16, 2023, 6-9 pm, as part of the 2023 Summer Solstice Oasis in The Woods: An Art & Wellness Festival at Juniper's Garden, the artists will host an open house where they will be present to offer free and open to the public gallery walks. In addition, they will be contributing stories of their experiences with the South County ecosystem and the process by which their installations came together.
HOST: Samaria Marley Brandywine MD
samariamarley@gmail.com
About the Facilitators, Samaria is a farmer, herbalist, and co-owner of Junipers Garden. She has worked in agriculture and food justice in the D.C. metro region for over ten years. Her innovative and visionary approach has helped to usher in accessible models of food access and community-centered care. She developed the first low-cost C.S.A. model, C.R.I.S.P., in DC 2016. Then went on to manage The Farm at Kelly Miller in NE DC for four years. She is also the co-founder of the D.C. Mutual Aid Apothecary, a mutual aid organization that connects people to herbal medicine, education, and community.
She began her herbalism journey in 2015 and has studied with Wild Ginger Herbal Center, Well of Indigenous Wisdom, and the Vermont Center for Integrative Herbalism. She is also a 2022 Braiding Seeds Fellow. Samaria and her partner Blain recently opened Junipers Garden, a small-scale vegetable and medicinal herb farm in Brandywine, MD, whose mission is to provide a space for black and brown people to be on land, reclaim their ancestral healing and farming practices, traditions, and seeds and gain access to valuable knowledge and resources. The farm hosts seasonal events, herbalism workshops, retreats, and natural building workshops.
Curators:
Caryl Henry Alexander, Clinton Maryland
https://www.carylhenryalexander.com/
For more than 40 years, Caryl Henry Alexander's work has harnessed the power of creative collaboration with multi-generational, multicultural, and interfaith communities to conceive, design, and implement community art projects in diverse public settings around the globe. In the studio, Caryl's work includes painting, printmaking, papermaking, textiles, installations, and sculpture. Her media are traditional and experimental, often incorporating recycled or found objects and natural plant materials. Out in the community, she combines her roles as a visual artist, teaching artist, curator, researcher, lecturer, writer, and social activist to support communities in clarifying their shared goals and turning their ideas into action. Her long-term focus is on culture, environment, and nature. She has exhibited throughout the U.S. and abroad. Her media are traditional and experimental, often incorporating recycled or found objects and natural plant materials.
Alpha Bruton, Chicago Illinois
phantomngallerychicago@gmail.com
Chief Curator Phantom Gallery Chicago Network, the Phantom Galleries, are temporary exhibitions in nontraditional gallery settings. The mission of the (P.G.C.N.) is to promote the betterment of the visual arts community through the arts, promote personal achievement in striving for excellence and continual growth as an artist, and promote cultural activities in exhibits, workshops; galleries exhibitions; art centers; artists in residence projects. She is the Co-founder of the Visual Arts Development Project (V.A.D.P.), formed in 1996. It is an art service organization - that develops projects as living experiments for sustainable practices and an incubator for personal and collective transformation. Visual Arts Development Project is a community-based art organization that provides children, adults, and emerging artists with resources, workshops, and venues to show and express their art form. https://vartsdevelopmentproject.blogspot.com
Jennifer Andrea "Y.A.Y.A." Porras- Sacramento California
During her studies and the American Southwest, she was a cultural ambassador, arts educator, and performing artist in China, Mexico, Africa, and Cuba. A multi-talented artist who has received Fellowships from Teatro Campesino, the National Association of Latino Arts and Culture (N.A.L.A.C.), was a youth mentor and video documenter for the Center for African Peace Conflict Resolution. Curator of the International Society of Altar Making artist constructs temporary installations which are curated by master altar makers drawing on personal history: Envisioned to evoke the transformative value of historical and contemporary cultural traditions, M.A.P.'s Gallery uses the power of myth, stories, and imagination to give voice to the universality of cultural traditions.
Gabrielle Gilliam "Gigi"
Gigi is a holistic wellness educator, experienced curator, 200-hour certified vinyasa yoga teacher, social justice advocate, and an eternal student of life. She uses the principles of yoga, mindfulness attitudes, and natural wisdom as catalysts for ease, empowerment, and liberation. With a strong belief that holding space for collective reflection, imagination, and transformation is the key to meaningful change, Gigi regards her work as spiritual activism. Her teaching style honors the beauty and nuance of the human experience while encouraging individual power and curiosity along the way.
"Pause Portal" wellness installation is a Place for Collective Reflection, Imagination, and Transformation.
Chantel Bennett https://www.linkedin.com/in/chantelbennett/
Chantel (she/her) is a Caribbean-American multidisciplinary artist and spiritual diviner.
She has yet to find a medium she won't try at least once and often cycles through periods of focusing on one or three mediums more than others. She is currently focusing on fiber arts and Collage. After learning how to knit through TikTok and YouTube University, she is working on replacing her storebought sweaters and knitwear with clothes she knit or crocheted. She learned how to crochet from her mother at a young age and often has at least two fiber projects going at once. In addition, she uses collages for emotional expression and has led therapeutic art journaling and collaging sessions for over 7 years. After completing her Master's in Social Work at the University of Maryland, Baltimore, in May 2023, she plans to become an art therapist and incorporate creative self-expression into her therapy practice.
Cultural Equity Statement
The Phantom Gallery Chicago and its network of artists and art organizations believe cultural equity embodies the values, policies, and practices that ensure that all people—including but not limited to those who have been historically underrepresented based on race/ethnicity, age, disability, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, socioeconomic status, geography, citizenship status, or religion—are represented in the development of arts policy; the support of artists; the nurturing of accessible, thriving venues for expression; and the fair distribution of programmatic, financial, and informational resources.
Phantom Gallery Chicago promotes the betterment of the visual arts community through cultural activities in exhibits, workshops; gallery exhibitions; art centers; artist in residence projects and promotes personal achievement in striving for excellence and continual growth as an artist. As a BIPOC-led group, our curatorial practice works with mainstream artists and alongside diverse artists from varied backgrounds and practitioners.
Sponsored in Part by:
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