Closing Reception: First Friday June 7   6 – 9 p.m.

Hors d’oeuvres and refreshments served

from the #notwhite collective

April 5 through June 7, 2019

Opening Reception: Friday, April 5, 6-9 p.m.

Spoken Word Performances: Saturday, April 6  7-9 p.m.

Closing Reception: Friday, June 7  6-9 p.m. Hors d’oeuvres and refreshments served

Where: ¡Buen Vivir! Gallery for Contemporary Art – 148 Elmwood Avenue – Buffalo, NY

All events are free and open to the public

April 5: In Between the Middle Exhibit Opening Reception

Friday, April 5, 2019, 6-9 p.m.

A Buffalo premiere of the #notwhite collective

Hors d’oeuvres and refreshments served

April 6: Betwixt & Between: An night of poetry and spoken word

Saturday, April 6, 2019, 7-9 p.m.

Pittsburgh-based #notwhite collective and Buffalo poets celebrate National Poetry Month

The Pittsburgh-based #notwhite collective, a group of 12 women artists of bi/multi-racial/cultural, immigrant- or descendant-of-immigrants backgrounds, will present an evening of poetry and spoken word with Buffalo poets on Saturday, April 6, from 7-9 p.m. The event kicks off the first weekend of National Poetry Month and is presented in conjuction with the Buffalo premiere of the collective’s art exhibit, In Between the Middle at the ¡Buen Vivir! Gallery for Contemporary Art (148 Elmwood Avenue, Buffalo NY 14201) which runs through June 7, 2019.

Performers include Buffalo artists Danielle AJ, Bianca L. McGraw and N’gana, who will be joined by #notwhite collective members: Madame Dolores, HollyHood, Fran Flaherty, Carolina Loyola-Garcia, Liana Maneese, Maritza Mosquera and Sara Tang. The event is open to the public, and ASL interpretation will be provided. Visit www.notwhitecollective.com for more information.

artist bios

Danielle AJ is a 22 year old poet, actress and writer based in Buffalo, NY, who strongly believes in the power of expression and how it effects communities and builds bridges and breaks systems. She loves the simple pleasures like writing love poems, knitting and eating full cartons ice cream in bed.

Madame Dolores is a multi-platform, multi-disciplinary artist employing sound, vision, text, and performance as storytelling tools creating radical, controversial cultural engagements. At the root of her practice are questions about our humanity as she rewrites new mythologies. A recipient of the Pittsburgh Business Times WomenFirst award in 2017, she has received awards, grants and commissions from The Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, August Wilson Center, Advancing the Black Arts, Pennsylvania Council for the Arts and the Trinidad Theater Festival among others.

Amber Michelle Epps is a multidisciplinary artist who creates work using various found and discarded objects from nature and other unexpected places such as thrift stores. The work that she creates is inspired by spirituality, humanism, and the occult. Amber, also known as HollyHood–the “mom of Pittsburgh hip hop”–recently released her newest album Yellow Jacket.

Fran Flaherty is a deaf artist living in Pittsburgh for over 25 years. As a first generation immigrant from the Philippines, her work is centered in issues surrounding migrant family relations and assimilation, maternal feminism, disability aesthetics, and social work. A graduate of the University of Pittsburgh Studio Arts Program, Fran’s work has been shown nationally and internationally. She was recently named in Art 511 Magazine’s “Top Ten NYC Artists Now.”

Carolina Loyola-Garcia is a multidisciplinary artist, filmmaker, and educator. She works primarily in media arts, including single-channel video art, video installations, video design for theater, digital printmaking, documentary, and has ventured into performance through theater and dance. Her work has been shown in the United States and abroad, and has been supported by grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Pittsburgh Foundation and the Heinz Endowments among others.

Bianca L. McGraw is a Pure Ink Poetry Slam Co-Host and Event Coordinator, Higher Education Advocate and international practicing multimedia installation/performance artist that uses art, poetry, performance and space as a vehicle for discussion about identity, diversity and perspectives while exploring personal, societal and communal experiences.

Brazilian born, Pittsburgh raised Liana Maneese is an award-winning activist, artist, visionary entrepreneur, and catalyst for new and creative ways to engage. She is an Afro-Brazilian transracial adoptee on a mission to excite folks around the power of personal responsibility, knowledge of self, and how that power can be harnessed to change the world. Adopting Identity: The Exploration of Lies, Luck, and Legitimacy, raises questions about interracial relationships and building emotional resiliency.

Maritza Mosquera is a visual artist, poet, painter, and cook whose creations often accompany dialogues with community. Her written and visual work has been presented regionally and nationally, as well as in Costa Rica, Ecuador, Ireland, and Chile. Her work has been funded by the Multi-Cultural Arts Initiative of the Pittsburgh Foundation, Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation, The National Endowment for the Arts, Americans for The Arts, The Buncher Foundation, The Snow Foundation and Arts Midwest.

Marielle (She/They) stage name N’gana, is a Buffalo native and mother of two, who enjoys writing and performing her work that is reflective of her experiences as a queer black femme. Since 2016 N’gana has been organizing with her political home Black Love Resist in the Rust /Just Resisting, a local people of color community organization dedicated to dismantling the white supremacist hetro- patriarchal society by empowering , educating and healing Black and Brown  people. She believes one of the greatest acts of resistance is finding healing through artistic expression. She currently co- facilitates Black Magnolias, a Black and People of Color creative writing workshop with Richie Willis and is a Contributing writer for FlaggrantCity.com, an online blog site https://flagrantcity.com/author/noirdelacreme/

Sara Tang is an artist, illustrator, and creative facilitator who has called many places home, including Pittsburgh. Tang is the founder of the creative collaborations community Sip n’ Sketch Pittsburgh. She has worked with those who have been affected by cancer and other life experiences in creative therapy excavation workshops. She has studied the arts at the Rhode Island School of Design, Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Pittsburgh, and with Immanuel Icons. draw-me-in.com

#notwhite collective is a group of 14 women artists elevating the stories of the others. Those who do not fit neatly in the consensus boxes, neatly in cultural categories.

#notwhite collective is a bi/multi-racial/cultural, immigrant or descendants of immigrants. They have come together, to question, to investigate, dig deep into what identity is within and without the construct and context of white – not in skin color, but as a system of oppression, a system they do not align ourselves with. In lieu of police brutality, calls for bans, for walls, they hope to provide an artistic platform for difficult discussions on the complexities of cultural identity in America to move us towards humanity.

From a video shot on February 16, 2018 at Pittsburgh, PA’s South Side Brew House Gallery:

www.facebook.com/notwhitecollective/

instagram: notwhitecollective