Arts Echo: Interdependence is Our Way Through
Ravyn A. Wngz
If you want to learn about a person, place, and time in history, you look at the art. You listen to the stories told around campfires and family dinner tables. You visit museums or read books. You piece together what was lost or left out and weave it back into its rightful place.
Imagine, for a moment, living a life without art.
How would we know what took place in our history as African/Black people without the poets and painters? How would we keep our revolutions alive without the chants, banners, photos, and drums? An existence without the storytellers—my gosh, life would be impossible.
For generations, Black folx have passed down teachings of survival through song and dance, through call and response, through rhythms and ritual. We disguised messages in the steel drums of calypso songs and created Black renaissances. Black creativity isn’t just a talent but a way of processing what we’ve been through. Black creativity is alchemy—it’s magic, it’s design, it’s healing. Art shouldn’t be thought of as just an add-on to revolution; it is absolutely at its center. And it is high time we collectively reorient ourselves to its importance.
“What would our current experience be without the language to accurately describe it from writers like Dr. Akua Benjamin, bell hooks, Sonia Sanchez, and Kimberlé Crenshaw? What would it feel like not to have heard Whitney Houston sing, or Billie Holiday brave the truth at the cost of her own life, to perform the once-illegal song “Strange Fruit”? I shudder at the thought of not having read the poems of Lucille Clifton and Langston Hughes, the writings of James Baldwin and Nikki Giovanni—how ’bout Octavia Butler and Toni Morrison.”
Radio Technicians' Class, Daytona Beach, Florida, 1943 courtesy of The Gordon Parks Foundation.
There is no time in human history when art did not exist. No time when the political atmosphere dissuaded Black artists from taking to the streets and making their voices heard. So who convinced us that our art does not matter, and that it only exists as an escape from reality? And what do they gain if we collectively believe that? This political atmosphere demands that we create, share, and archive our stories, and by doing so, protect the memories and lives of all those who came before us—those who fought and dreamed us freer. Think about the Underground Railroad and the ways in which enslaved Africans, First Peoples of Turtle Island, and white abolitionists created communication technology: putting lanterns in windows, singing songs to alert others that the time to run was upon them, braiding map patterns into their hair so that they wouldn’t lose their way.
The Underground Railroad is a great example of collaboration. It offers us pathways for how we can use our skills and privileges to help and support each other—and how art is integral to survival.
As an abolitionist storyteller, it is my duty to create art that reminds us as Black people that we come from love, that we are love, and that freedom and liberation are collective. It’s my duty as a descendant of enslaved Africans who created abolition to finish the project. To be intentional with the spells I cast through my work as a Mohawk grandchild, and to hold at the center of my creation the One Dish, One Spoon treaty wampum covenant agreement between the Haudenosaunee and the Anishinaabe nations: to share this land, to lay down our weapons against each other, and instead use them to build with one another, and to operate with the protocol of not taking more than we need and always leaving something in the bowl. I take my eldership from the land itself. The land teaches us how to be in harmony with one another, how to share resources, and how to come together like two distinct trees that fuse themselves together in order to survive—like seasons trading off and tagging in to bring life to its balance.
Fearless, transcendent souls - Nina Simone and James Baldwin photographed by Bernard Gotfryd, 1965.
To create dangerously is to use your work to teach people how to imagine a reality that does not yet exist, that you have never seen but know is true and believe is possible—and it is your art that makes it true. James Baldwin said, “The role of the artist is the same as the lover. If I love you, I must tell you the truth.” And Nina Simone believed it was “the artist’s duty to reflect the times.” This is exactly the time to sing your songs, publish your books, to be the hammer that carves out a reality where we are free, joyful, and together.
As African/Black artists, sustainability is something that we each grapple with—trying to eke out livings while creating work that uplifts, highlights, protects, and sustains our communities. Capitalism and white supremacy have convinced us that there aren’t enough resources for everyone to be supported, so we create and interact with each other from a place of scarcity and emergency. Let us do away with that and imagine from a deeper place—where our wealth lies within our relationships to each other. Where we help and support each other so that all boats rise together. Art is the thread, and interdependence is our way forward. Each artist crafting and creating from their own field and social location, and all of us agreeing and committing to the collective work of pouring into this community-village-bowl.
People should want to invest in the artists of their communities because they are its lifeline. If we understood art as life in a principled and committed way, philanthropists and other such organizations would come together to ensure reciprocity is given to the radical Black artists of their communities, and design reflexive, sustainable strategies to keep them funded. The bottom line is: we need long-term investment. We need people dedicated to ensuring that all Black creatives are supported at every stage of the journey and creation. Why? Because we know that Black culture has moved through and helped shape this world. For example, our Palestinian brethren utilizing hip-hop to move their message of liberation and freedom around the world; voguing and the Ballroom Scene creating openness and the space for one to unapologetically be themselves. Black art has acted as an antidote to the wounds of imperialism.
I think of sustainability not just in terms of financial support but also the currency of community witnessing. I think of it as culture shifts, secret handshakes, and word-of-mouth shares. I think about it as community fridges and safe injection sites. I think of it as “know your rights” education, coalition building, and book clubs. Throughout my artistic journey, collaboration has made it possible for me to grow, hone my craft, and be supported while creating. This is how I’ve been able to be a working artist for the past 20 years. Also, understanding my art as an offering in service to the community made me realize how expansive my art could be—and that I had been dreaming too small. Facilitating free, accessible dance classes led me to organizing on the frontlines of the Black Lives Matter movement here in Canada. I utilized my skills as a burlesque artist by using glamour and performance in my oration as a way to bring attention to political calls to action and to platform the voices of Black families directly impacted by systemic anti-Black policing.
Ravyn Wngz photographed by Jackie Brown Photography.
Comrades, I invite you to think of your career and arts practice like the lifespan of a plant or tree. From soil to seed, from pot to plot, from roots to leaves, from stem to flower, from sun to soil—each part of the process is important, practiced, and cared for. Find the people who can water your garden. Invest in building relationships with your funders, representatives, and communities. Think of it like building an extended family tree, where each branch is enriched by the sun and bears fruits and medicine flowers—and once complete, returns such abundance back to the soil for what will grow in its absence. And know this: in order to transform a system, we have to transform ourselves.
Fatalism and powerlessness are rot inside the mind. Remember that you are alive, you are here, and that everything is solvable. Despair is the absence of imagination, so widen the scope of the justice you seek. Take responsibility for the spells you cast—in the narratives you create, the possibilities you awaken, the care you offer, and the kindness you provide. That is design.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ravyn Wngz, “The Black Widow of Burlesque,” is an Afro-Indigenous, 2Spirit, Queer and Transcendent multidisciplinary art maker, curator and empowerment storyteller. Her work is rooted in abolition and expressed through movement theater, political education, cultural research, DEI consultancy, and many forms of disability justice. She is a Canadian Best Selling Author (Until We Are Free), received the Stratford Festival mid career artist award 2021, named Top 25 Women of Influence in Canada recipient of 2021, and a Nobel Peace Prize nominee 2021 (with Black Lives Matter). Ravyn has lectured widely on topics such as abolition, art & activism, accessibility, LGBT inclusion, leadership, policy, and land-based informed policies at Deloitte Canada, University of Virginia Dept of Anthropology, UCLA School of Architecture and Urban design, McMaster University, University of Toronto School of Law Faculty, Faculty at the Toronto District School Board, Toronto Catholic School Board, and Canada’s National Ballet School.
