What does this year’s curated series have in store?
By Andrea Faye Hart
A circle facilitated by Public Newsroom host Jenna Anast. (Photo courtesy of Jenna Anast)
Last month, we were thrilled to announce our 2019 Public Newsroom Curator—lifelong Chicagoan and “artrepreneur” Felicia Holman. Before Holman’s series kicks off October 31, we sat down with her to dig deeper into the series titled, “Community Care in the 2020 Election: We Gon' Be Alright."
After serving six years as administrative staff at Chicago’s Links Hall, Holman is currently a freelance cultural producer, programmer and writer. In 2001, she cofounded the Afrodiasporic feminist creative collective, Honey Pot Performance. Holman relishes her dynamic artrepreneurial life and sums it up in three words—creator, connector, conduit.
Holman’s Public Newsroom events will share skills and tools for creative resilience during the upcoming election cycle. Creative communities have a long history of fighting racist and sexist systems of oppression, and the 2020 election promises to be a particularly depleting and divisive time. With that in mind, Holman has invited three Chicago-based women of color artists and activists to host Public Newsrooms: Jenna Anast on October 31, Tanuja Jagernuath on November 7 and Nikki Patin on November 21.
Afterward we’ll be working with Holman to compile a digital download of resources and lessons learned throughout each workshop. You can find details for each workshop listed below.
CB: Your theme for the workshop series is “creating a culture of care” ahead of the 2020 elections. Can you talk more about it?
Felicia Holman: This theme is inspired and motivated by my continued work in Chicago’s arts ecosystem as a civic-minded artist. It’s also inspired by having the cellular memory of the wind that was knocked out of the community on November 8, 2016. I want to get ahead of the self and community care for the marginalized of this city because we have been resisting and mobilizing for an ungodly amount of time. No matter who wins in the 2020 election, I want us to get ahead of a depleting process, to give power and bolster agency through creating a space where we can pull our resources together. We’ve been doing this for years now. We can’t stop.
City Bureau 2019 Public Newsroom Curator Felicia Holman’s series kicks off October 31. (Photo courtesy of City Bureau)
CB: What do you want attendees to get out of this Public Newsroom workshop series?
FH: I want folks to walk away with actionable resources, whether that’s new perspectives and paradigms, new online or offline tools, as well as connecting with other people. I want people to walk away with something they can use immediately in their practice no matter the artistic discipline, even if it’s someone who doesn’t consider themselves a creative or an artist per se. The Public Newsroom is a platform to bring forth an action, even if it’s a paradigm shift, or slowing down to be engaged and energized. If they’re involved in their community’s development, there will be transferable skills. As a professional who practices being an artrepreneur, I’m always looking at this holistically to see how we can work smarter with more impact, less burnout.
CB: Can you talk about the series hosts you’ve selected and why?
FH: They’re all fellow women of color creatives who’ve crafted special communities and are all activists in one form or another. Jenna Anast—whose journeywork with OTV put her on my shortlist—is so dynamic and intrepid in her focus on care.
A couple of years ago, Tanuja Jagernuath and I worked together (with performance artist Anna Martine Whitehead) to present a workshop series on problematic art reviews through Links Hall called "Remix the Critique". Tanuja co-presented the first Taskforce workshop on how to assess problematic art reviews for writers of color. She also helped build charter guidelines from those workshops on how to write better reviews.
Nikki Patin is also a native Chicagoan and we’ve been supporting each other's creative work for years. When she started her “Surviving the Mic” series, I attended the first one in a thrift store in Wicker Park. Now Nikki’s in residence at Hyde Park Art Center and I want to give her this additional platform to share how she built, maintains and cares for her “Surviving the Mic" community.
I want to show how these living and breathing dynamic people can share their models on how to survive and do it for yourself. In this series, they will share how and where we can take our power back because, whatever the electoral college is going to do, we have to be ready for us.
We hope to catch you at one of the following workshops this fall:
Public Newsroom 123: Building Brave Spaces for Community with Jenna Anast
October 31 at 345 Gallery (345 N. Kedzie Ave.) from 6 to 8 p.m.
Public Newsroom 124: Creating a World Beyond Racism and Fascism with Tanuja Jagernauth
November 7 at TBD from 6 to 8 p.m.
Public Newsroom 126: Surviving the Mic with Nikki Patin
November 21 at Experimental Station (6100 S. Blackstone Ave.) from 6 to 8 p.m.
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