Thursday, August 19, 2021 | 6–8pm
ADMISSION: NOTE: This event takes place at the Yerba Buena Gardens; free and open to all
As part of Yerba Buena Day, experience the latest iteration of an ongoing project by GLTTR Collective co-founders Leah King and Juan Carlos Rodriguez Rivera—Diasporic Futurism: Taking Up (Outer) Space. Join us in the Yerba Buena Gardens for an evening of multidisciplinary live performance, including visual art and music by Leah King, Nina Sol, Trovarsi, Afatasi The Artist, Sandy Vazquez, Black Fairy Dust, Nahid Elgadi, and more. The event will follow the Museum of the African Diaspora's (MoAD) Open Mic Poetry | All-Stars from 4–6pm.
Diasporic Futurism: Taking Up (Outer) Space is an extension of King’s current studio work, On My Mother’s Side, a graphic collage and sound design project exploring futurist ancestry developed in part during her participation in Artist Studios at The CJM.
This event is developed in partnership with MoAD and the Yerba Buena Garden Festival, and with the financial support of the Yerba Buena Community Benefit District (YBCBD).
Leah King is a curator, artist, musician, and educator born and raised in the Bay Area. Her work is deeply rooted in afrofuturist aesthetics, joyful noises, and unabashed reclamations. She is a member of female:pressure international DJ network, the co-founder of GLTTR Collective, and was a curatorial resident at Root Division Gallery and a YBCA Political Power Fellow.
Juan Carlos Rodríguez Rivera is a designer, artist, educator, and curator passionate about food, lover of ephemeral objects, gradients, and anything deemed as kitsch. Rivera was born and raised in the smallest town of Puerto Rico. His practice focuses on dismantling colonial legacies in art and design from the perspective of a queer Boricua diaspora. The ongoing research that informs his work is the study of decoloniality, pedagogy, design, and non-western methodologies.
Public Programs at The CJM are made possible thanks to generous support from Grants for the Arts and the Walter & Elise Haas Fund.