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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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. […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]