How do we communicate across languages forgotten, forced, or adopted? How do we connect the dust here to the concrete there? The answer lies in our stories.
Ijeoma Umebinyuo | Writing Exploration for People of African Descent
(hosted by Nkeiruka Oruche)
Sunday, November 18th | 4:30-6:30PM |
SoleSpace 1714 Telegraph Ave. Oakland
With a focus on the African Immigrant experience, this intimate session provides an opportunity to dig in with one of our best modern poets, Ijeoma Umebinyuo. Facilitated by Nkeiruka Oruche, Ijeoma will share her writing process as inspiration for digging into our authentic creative expressions. This session involves both discussion with the poet and a personal writing workshop for people of African descent.
*limited spots available
This event is presented as part of the Afro Urban Society's 2018 Bakanal de Afrique, Afro Urban Festival. Bakanal de Afrique’s 2018 Theme ‘Wey You Dey?’ (Where were you?) explores the history/timeline of urban African culture by asking people of the Diaspora to reflect on a specific moment in their lives and to create a story from that moment. For more information and full festival listing visit www.bakanaldeafrique.com
Ijeoma Umebinyuo was born in Lagos, Nigeria. Her ancestral home sits between two states, a border town somewhere in Southeastern Nigeria. In 2016, Ijeoma was named one of the top contemporary poets emerging from Africa by Writivism. Her short stories and poems have appeared in The Stockholm Review of Literature, The Wildness, The Rising Phoenix Review, Doll Hospital Journal, The Renaissance Noire, The Gordon Square Review and The MacGuffin. Her poem “Diaspora Blues” is a part of Dr. Rosalba Icaza’s contribution to Routledge Handbook of Postcolonial Politics. In 2017, Ijeoma was invited to speak at The Cooper Union, her talk Dismantling the Culture of Silence seeks to challenge the culture where silence is seen as a virtue in marginalized communities and how such affect women. Dismantling the Culture of Silence has been used by some teachers to teach students in high school the importance of using their voices. Her poem The Delicate Acts of Survival from her poetry collection Questions for Ada has been selected to be translated into Spanish; it will be published by Consejo Latinoamericano de Ciencas Sociales (Latin American Council of Social Sciences) as part of an ebook.
Nkeiruka Oruche is an Igbo cultural producer and multidisciplinary performer specializing in urban culture of the African Diaspora and its intersections with personal identity, public health and sociopolitical action. Since 2002, Nkeiruka has played a crucial role in ushering African culture unto the global stage from working as Editor-in-Chief of Nigerianentertainment.com, a digital magazine, and as co-founder of One3snapshot, an urban African art collective. Currently, Nkeiruka is focused on expanding and sustaining grassroots change-making and community health through the production, performance and embodiment of art and culture. She is a co-founder of BoomShake, a social justice and music education organization, artistic director of Afro Urban Society, a meeting place for urban African art, culture and people, and director of Studio Grand a multidisciplinary space dedicated to artists.
Bakanal de Afrique (BdA), is an Afro Urban festival. The gifted child of Afro Urban Society, BdA brings us together across cultures, and showcases new, emerging and underground urban art, culture and people through performance, workshops, visual media and conversations. The festival features multiple days of events in collaboration with artists and various organizational partners.