Contemporary Black Canvas

Welcome to Contemporary Black Canvas, I am your host, Dr. Pia Deas. In today’s episode, I had the pleasure of interviewing scholar Therí Alyce Pickens about her most recent work Black Madness::Mad Blackness published by Duke University Press in 2019.  Currently, Therí A. Pickens is a  Full Professor of English at Bates College in Lewiston, […] The post EP 27 Scholar Therí A. Pickens appeared first on Contemporary Black Canvas.

In today’s episode, I had the pleasure of speaking with award winning poet Geffrey Davis. Davis has authored two successful books Revising the Storm,   a 2013 A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize winner and most recently Night Angler ,  the recipient of the 2018 James Laughlin Award. Geffrey Davis is currently an Associate Professor at the […] The post EP 26 Poet Geffrey Davis appeared first on Contemporary Black Canvas.

Welcome to Contemporary Black Canvas. I am your host, Dr. Pia Deas. On this episode of Contemporary Black Canvas, we are sharing an audio recording entitled “ It’s A Commitment,” an audio recording. This audio piece features esteemed dance scholars Dr. Halifu Osumare and Dr. Brenda Dixon Gottschild. This is part of a larger, artists’ […] The post BAM EP 5 Scholars, Dancers, and Choreographers: Dr. Osumare and Dr. Dixon Gottschild appeared first on Contemporary Black Canvas.

Welcome to Contemporary Black Canvas where we celebrate the depth and breadth of Black artistic and intellectual traditions. In this episode, I had the pleasure of speaking with Dr. Rashad Shabazz, an Associate Professor of Justice and Social Inquiry within  School of Social Transformation at Arizona State University and an affiliate faculty member at the […] The post EP 25 Scholar Rashad Shabazz appeared first on Contemporary Black Canvas.

Welcome to Contemporary Black Canvas, I am your host, Dr. Pia Deas. In this episode,  I had the pleasure of speaking with scholar and activist, Abdul Alkalimat. In our conversation today, he begins by discussing how influential his family of activists and scholars were on his early development and his lifelong commitment to the freedom […] The post BAMAA EP 4 Scholar & Activist Abdul Alkalimat appeared first on Contemporary Black Canvas.

Welcome to Contemporary Black Canvas. I am your host, Dr. Pia Deas. This week we had the pleasure of speaking with Meg Onli, the current Assistant  Curator at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia. Please join us for this two-part series. In this episode, we speak to Meg Onli about her life and work […] The post EP 24 Curator Meg Onli appeared first on Contemporary Black Canvas.

On this episode, I am joined by CBC’s research assistant, Jasmine Newton. In this episode, we interviewed architectural designer, poet, and visual artist, Komi Olaf. His visual art has been inspired by asking the question, “What does African heritage look like with technology?” He thus, imagines a world where colonization does not exist and instead […] The post EP 23 Visual Artist, Architectural Designer, and Poet Komi Olaf appeared first on Contemporary Black Canvas.

Welcome to Contemporary Black Canvas, where we celebrate the depth and breadth of the Black artistic and intellectual traditions. I am your host, Dr. Pia Deas. Before we begin, I want to encourage all of our listeners to check out our new and beautifully re-designed website. Our website now gives a much better a more […] The post EP 22 Educator Khalilah Brann appeared first on Contemporary Black Canvas.

Welcome to Contemporary Black Canvas, where we celebrate the depth and breadth of the Black artistic and intellectual traditions. I am your host, Dr. Pia Deas, in this episode, we interviewed painter, sculptor, and printmaker Wadsworth Jarrell and fashion designer Jae Jarrell. Their works, contributions and founding of the AFRICOBRA Movement has been inspired by […] The post BAM Ep 2: Jae and Wadsworth Jarrell appeared first on Contemporary Black Canvas.

I am delighted to welcome you to a new series within the larger Contemporary Black Canvas series. This month in honor of Black history month we are premiering the first two episodes of our new, on-going series, the Black Arts Movement Audio Archive. The Black Arts Movement Audio Archive is the first audio archive of […] The post BAMAA Ep 1: Poet and Press Founder Naomi Long Madgett appeared first on Contemporary Black Canvas.

In this episode we had the pleasure of speaking with Tommy “Junebug” Joshua, the founder & visionary behind the North Philadelphia Peace Project. Joshua is a Philadelphia native with deep roots in the rural Greensboro, NC. Strong family ties led to deeply vested communal bonds during his adolescence & well into adulthood that heavily influenced […] The post EP 21: Tommy Joshua, Founder of North Philadelphia Peace Park appeared first on Contemporary Black Canvas.

This week on Contemporary Black Canvas we are pleased to present our first co-hosted interview. On this episode, I, Dr. Pia Deas, am joined by our CBC Research Assistant Madison Washington. Stay tuned  to hear our engaging and inspiring interview with Supreme Dow, founder and executive director of the Black Writers’ Museum, located at Vernon […] The post EP:20 Supreme Dow appeared first on Contemporary Black Canvas.

On this episode of Contemporary Black Canvas, I had the pleasure of speaking to Jeri Lynne Johnson, a conductor and the founder of Black Pearl Chamber Orchestra. Jeri Lynne Johnson is deeply committed to building the diversity of the contemporary orchestra and its audience. On this episode, we learn about  her love for classical music […] The post Ep:19 Jeri Lynne Johnson appeared first on Contemporary Black Canvas.

On this episode of Contemporary Black Canvas, I had the pleasure of speaking to J Mase, the III, a Black/trans/queer poet and educator. He is also the founder of AwQuard the first ever trans and queer people of color specific talent agency. He is author of “If I Should Die Under the Knife, Tell My […] The post EP 18 Poet and Educator J Mason, III appeared first on Contemporary Black Canvas.

On this episode of Contemporary Black Canvas, we had the pleasure of interviewing the mixed media visual artist, Amber Robles-Gordon.  She primarily works and is known for her use of found objects and textile to create assemblages, large-scale sculptures and installations.  Her work is representational of her experiences and the paradoxes within the female experience. […] The post EP 17: Mixed Media Visual Artist Amber Robles-Gordon appeared first on Contemporary Black Canvas.

On this 1/2 hour special edition of Contemporary Black Canvas, we are highlighting the sixth annual BlackStar Film Festival 2017. For this episode, we were delighted to welcome back festival founder Maori Holmes (Episode 5) and independent filmmaker M. Asli Dukan (Episode 10) to talk about this year’s festival. The sixth annual BlackStar Film Festival, held […] The post EP 16: Special Edition – BlackStar Film Festival 2017 appeared first on Contemporary Black Canvas.

On this episode of Contemporary Black Canvas, I had the pleasure of interviewing historian Russell Rickford about his most recent book, We Are An African People: Independent Education, Black Power, and The Radical Imagination. Dr. Rickford is an Associate Professor of history at Cornell University. In we are an African People, he traces the development […] The post EP 15 Dr. Russell Rickford and We Are An African People appeared first on Contemporary Black Canvas.

On this episode of Contemporary Black Canvas, I spoke to LaNeshe Miller-White who, together with Carlo Campbell and Walter Deshields, founded Theatre in the X in 2013. Theatre in the X is an outdoor performance collective that produces and performs several plays in Malcolm X Park in Philadelphia each August. Join us on this episode […] The post EP 14 LaNeshe Miller-White and Theatre in the X appeared first on Contemporary Black Canvas.

This week at Contemporary Black Canvas, we are excited to introduce you to Leah Penniman, co-founder with her husband Jonah Penniman, of Soul Fire Farms, their revolutionary, family-owned farm located in upstate New York. Soul Fire Farms is committed to ending racism and injustice in the food system. They actively fights institutional racism and food […] The post Ep 13 Soul Fire Farm with Leah Penniman appeared first on Contemporary Black Canvas.

In this week’s episode of Contemporary Black Canvas, we had the pleasure of interviewing scholar GerShun Avilez about his most recent book, Radical Aesthetics and Modern Black Nationalism. In Radical Aesthetics and Modern Black Nationalism, Dr. Avilez challenges the belief that the Black Arts Movement was a “dead end” and instead asks “What if it […] The post EP 12 Scholar GerShun Avilez appeared first on Contemporary Black Canvas.

This week on Contemporary Black Canvas we had the pleasure of interviewing physician and poet Irene Mathieu. Irene Mathieu eloquently balances her passionate interests in both the sciences and the humanities. As a child, her parents encouraged the legitimacy and even the fusion of the arts with the sciences and she has truly embodied this […] The post EP 11 Pediatrician & Poet Irene Mathieu appeared first on Contemporary Black Canvas.

On this episode of Contemporary Black Canvas, we had the pleasure of  interviewing filmmaker and founder of Mizan Media Productions, M. Asli Dukan. Asli’s interest in film and speculative fiction began in childhood and has flourished into a vibrant career where she uses film to explore the possibilities of societal transformation. She has written, produced […] The post EP 10 Filmmaker M. Asli Dukan appeared first on Contemporary Black Canvas.

In this week’s episode, we had the pleasure of conducting an interview with Greg Burnham and Marcus Williams, creators of the newly released Tuskegee Heirs comic book series! Tuskegee Heirs focuses on five young, African American pilots following in the aviatic tradition of the World War II Tuskegee Airmen. The legacy of the Tuskegee Airmen […] The post EP 09 Tuskegee Heirs (Marcus Williams and Greg Burnham) appeared first on Contemporary Black Canvas.

This week’s episode features a delightful and engaging interview with poet and scholar Evie Shockley. Professor Shockley grew up in Nashville Tennessee and is currently an Associate Professor of English at Rutgers University. She is the author of the poetry collections the Half-Red Sea, The New Black, and the forthcoming poetry collection Semi-Automatic. She has […] The post EP 08 Poet & Scholar Evie Shockley appeared first on Contemporary Black Canvas.

In this week’s episode,  I am delighted to bring you my lively and engaging interview with the poet and novelist, John Keene. In this wide-ranging conversation we discuss his early artistic pursuits, encouraged by his parents, towards drawing, visual art, and writing, the writers who mentored him, and his long-standing fascination with African diasporic history. […] The post EP 07 Poet and Novelist John Keene appeared first on Contemporary Black Canvas.

In this episode, I interviewed Pascale Boucicaut, a culinary artist, and Adachi Pimentel a photographer, who together form the artistic team behind Dishes of the Diaspora.  Dishes of the Diaspora, a project that was funded by the  Leeway Foundation, documents ten cooks in of African descent in Philadelphia. For this project, Pascale and Adachi join […] The post EP 6 Dishes of the Diaspora with Pascale Boucicaut and Adachi Pimentel appeared first on Contemporary Black Canvas.

In this week’s episode, I caught up with filmmaker, festival organizer, and curator Maori Holmes. Most recently, she is the founder of the Blackstar Film Festival in Philadelphia. Prior to Black Star, she was worked with the Jazzyfatnastees to put on the Black Lily Film and Music Festival in 2007 and 2008. She has directed […] The post EP 5 Filmmaker, Curator, Festival Organizer Maori Karmael Holmes appeared first on Contemporary Black Canvas.

In this episode, I had the honor of  interviewing Washington-D.C. based visual artist Akili Ron Anderson. Akili Ron Anderson is a stunningly versatile visual artist. His work includes breathtaking stained glass, sculpture, painting, drawing, printmaking, set design, and photography. His art celebrates African people and culture and emphasizes the importance of maintaining cultural and ancestral […] The post EP 4 VISUAL ARTIST AKILI RON ANDERSON appeared first on Contemporary Black Canvas.

In this week’s episode, I had the opportunity to interview sound artists Mendi and Keith Obadike. Mendi and Keith Obadike began experimenting with conventional music, but naturally expanded their endeavors. As conceptual and sound artists, their projects seek to go beyond any and all expectations of sound, music and genre in order to sonically create […] The post Ep 3 Mendi + Keith Obadike appeared first on Contemporary Black Canvas.

In this episode, I had the pleasure of interviewing dancer and choreographer Lela Aisha Jones, whose work infuses her movement with the intellectual and movement traditions of the African diaspora. Find out what led her to her unique and multifaceted form of expression, her favorite recipes, what it means to be the archivist of the […] The post Ep 2 Dancer and Choreographer Lela Aisha Jones appeared first on Contemporary Black Canvas.

POET YOLANDA WISHER Welcome to the Contemporary Black Canvas podcast! In our first episode, we interview Yolanda Wisher, the 2016-2017 Poet Laureate of the City of Philadelphia. Find out what drew her to poetry, whether she prefers to write in rhyme or free verse, and the secret behind the infamous typewriter–all this and much more! […] The post Ep 1. Poet Yolanda Wisher appeared first on Contemporary Black Canvas.

Welcome to our introductory episode. We are about to release some amazing interviews. Make sure you subscribe to the podcast in your podcast app! The post Ep 0 Introducing the Contemporary Black Canvas Podcast and Dr Pia Deas appeared first on Contemporary Black Canvas.