“Them is me”
- UnBound Bodies Collective
Roots + Futures:
We Are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For *June Jordan
Project Description
UnBound Bodies believes Black trans femmes and our Black queer elders deserve to be revered and commemorated while they are alive not just when they cross over. Designing, creating living altar installations is one of the ways we practice this belief through the exploration of honoring multigenerational narratives, dreams, and ancient futurity of QTBIPoC elders + Black Trans femmes and Gender Non-Binary folx and Black queer life in general.
Artist Bio
UnBound Bodies (UBB) is a QTBIPoC experimental transdisciplinary creative space|place making and tending collective. We create care-centered spaces as a means to explore and honor QTBIPoC culture, knowledge sharing, and community building. The tangible products that emerge from our tending practices are meaningful because of the time and energy we devote to exploration, dreaming, research, and care for our communities. All UBB offerings center the narratives and lived experiences of QTBIPoC. This centering enables the cultivation of a nourishing creative community. It also resists the real material and embodied violence of white supremacy--enacted through racism, trans/homophobia, ableism, gentrification, and other violences directed against us as QTBIPoC. UBB is committed to Black Queer futurity and we believe we can conjure and manifest the liberatory futures we desire/deserve--through a wide range of creative collaborations that honor our ancestors, elders, communities, and ourselves.
Photo credit: Mercedes Loving-Manley
IG: @Unboundbodies
FB: @unboundbodies
“We appreciate RIRJ’s responsive processes, when they asked for honest feedback they listened.”
- UnBound Bodies Collective
ubb collective members, photo credit: Angelica Cardona
Craig Bailey and Ifé Franklin during Craig's Living Altar celebration at MTW bookstore in Boston. Photo credit: Lauren Miller
Living Altar installation for Danny Harris in Roxbury. Photo credit: bashezo
Danny receives gifts while sitting on his Living Altar in Roxbury. Photo credit: Lauren Miller
Process sketch for Danny's Living Altar designed by the UBB collective + Perla Mabel.
Mercedes Loving-Manley's Living Altar installation at Malibu Beach. Photo credit: Golden
Member of Ifé's processional in Upham's Corner. Photo credit: Lauren Miller
Letta Neely + Deen Rawlins' Living Altar collaged photoshoot image. Designed by the UBB collective and Silent Fox
Ifé Franklin's Living Altar procession in Upham's Corner. Photo credit: Lauren Miller
Golden and their twin, Morgan's Living Altar photoshoot titled: I am as beautiful as a weapon & a woman, as a cameleon & a cannon, as a nigga & an ancient specimen. Photo credit: Golden
Craig Bailey and friend during Craig's Living Altar celebration at MTW bookstore in Boston. Photo credit: Lauren Miller
Golden's Living Altar photoshoot in Roslindale, titled: I made it home. Photo credit: Golden
Process image of Letta Neely + Deen Rawlins dancing during a Seed to Harvest event in Roxbury. Photo credit: bashezo
Mercedes' Living Altar installation/guerrilla perennial planting in Codman Square. Photo credit: bashezo