Published on June 21, 2022
When Kemi Adeyemi, Assistant Professor of Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies, signed on to help lead Crosscut’s Black Arts Legacies project, she brought a history of deep thinking on the role that the arts play in Black culture, and what the work of these artists can reveal. “Black artists tell us stories about what it feels like to make life here, sometimes against all odds,” she says.
Alongside fellow Black Arts Legacies project editor Jasmine Jamillah Mahmoud, Assistant Professor of Theatre History and Performance Studies, Adeyemi has committed the last half-year to selecting 26 Black artists whose experiences tell a larger story of Seattle — one that is often left out of mainstream histories. The two editors then wrote the artist profiles populating this new living history and led a team of storytellers who crafted the videos, photographs and audio stories that make up Black Arts Legacies. Crosscut launched the multimedia experience earlier this month in order to increase awareness of the role Black artists have played and continue to play in the Northwest cultural landscape.
Much of the Black Arts Legacies project is available online now, with new podcast episodes coming out every Wednesday throughout the month of June and short documentaries making their broadcast debuts on KCTS 9 every Thursday of the month at 8:50 p.m.
Continue reading at Crosscut.
Originally written by Caroline Gerdes for Crosscut.