Free Salon Performance Saturday, July 22nd
it seems as though blk lives are just coming to forefront of this nation’s conversation, but it has always been my mission to advocate not only for blk lives, but blk feeling, blk thought, and blk art. through language and performance i declare our humanity boldly. we matter.
SSB AWAY is pleased to welcome Los Angeles-based actor, writer, performance artist, filmmaker, and photographer, SOLA BAMIS. Sola will be in Abiquiu for a two-week artist residency. In conjunction with the residency, SSB will present excerpts from her solo performance, The Tutorial, on Saturday, July 22 at 7:30 PM. To RSVP for location and directions: info@someseriousbusiness.org.
ARTIST STATEMENT
as the imaginative, resourceful, and outspoken daughter of nigerian immigrants, conscientiously raised to value community and heavily influenced by african storytelling, my work centers the internal lives of blk and third world women, with an emphasis on our methods of survival in a cultural landscape marred by neoliberalism, big tech, and xenophobia. my experimental theater training at the california institute of the arts, over 10 years professional experience as an interdisciplinary artist, extensive study of blk women’s literature, particularly the works of toni morrison and ntozake shange, and distinct style of social media engagement have given way to this pivotal moment in my artistic practice as a writer and performer where i have chosen to exclusively, authentically, and unapologetically tell and enact the stories of blk women and girls. we lead deeply complex lives and, despite being marginalized and unheard, have an illuminating impact on society. we deserve full representation.
in my multi-part solo performance piece and social media installation, “the tutorial”, i use space, materials, movement, music, text, and theory to convey how mental illness in blk women is encoded in forced ritual labor and generational trauma and create tableaus of resistance to provide healing and joy. parts i and ii of my piece, both presented at redcat and directed by blk female directors, debuted successfully to immersed and inclusive physical and virtual audiences (pre-pandemic), and i strive to continue to engage participants with the lived experiences, liberation practices, and unrelenting voices of blk women. it seems as though blk lives are just coming to forefront of this nation’s conversation, but it has always been my mission to advocate not only for blk lives, but blk feeling, blk thought, and blk art. through language and performance i declare our humanity boldly. we matter.
About SSB Away
SSB Away provides crucial time and space for artists to step away from career demands and public scrutiny—to play with and explore emerging, unfamiliar, messy or mysterious aspects of their practices and open to new ideas, processes, theories, dreams, and artistic experiments. Retreat residences offer artists the agency to leave their habitual surroundings and to rest and inhabit a nourishing space of creative sanctuary, solitude, access to nature, and multivalent privacy. SSB Away is a program of Some Serious Business, a nonprofit arts resource hub and producer of performances, exhibitions, and hybrid initiatives rooted in a highly collaborative partnership model.