Imani Roach speaks with ICA’s new Director of Public Engagement about his various publics to serve: students at University of Pennsylvania (ICA’s parent institution); the neighborhood around Penn; community groups in Philadelphia. The interview was recorded this month at the TGMR studio and is 27:40 minutes long.
Read MoreIn one of her last podcast interviews for Artblog Radio, Imani Roach speaks with Yolanda Wisher, poet, educator, community advocate and Curator of Spoken Word at Philadelphia Contemporary (PC). Wisher talks about her beginnings as a writer, fueled by a mother who was a voracious reader and forceful advocate for her as a writer when she was in elementary school. The wide-ranging conversation explores why Wisher has a studio at Cherry St. Pier; how she figured out that poetry could be used for social change; her (not widely known) work as a singer and her upcoming podcast series for PC, which will enlist Philadelphia poets and DJs and include poetry recitation and music, and not so much conversation. This great conversation was recorded at Moore College of Art and Design’s TGMR Radio, and is 38 minutes long.
Read MoreImani reviews the new catalog from Rizzoli Electa, “I Too Sing America,” published in conjunction with the exhibit by the same name at the Columbus Museum of Art. Chock full of color images, archival materials and biographical insights, the coffee table book by writer and the show’s curator, Will Haygood, a Columbus native, is more than just a pretty face, she says.
Read MoreImani reviews Poorly Watched Girls, a series of multi-media environments created by Suzanne Bocanegra at the Fabric Workshop and Museum. This complex body of work, in turns mournful and playful, will be up through February 17, 2019.
Read MoreImani speaks with Philly-bred, Baltimore-based artist Rosa Leff about her chosen medium of cut paper and her affinity for the urban landscape.
Read MoreImani speaks with emerging artist, curator and poet Malachi Lily about shape-shifting, leadership and making space for nuanced representations of blackness.
Read MoreFounded in 2017, YallaPunk is an intersectional, trans-affirming performance festival and conference which celebrates the creative achievements of Middle Eastern and North African people in Philly and beyond. Here Imani Roach chats with YallaPunk’s founder, DJ and journalist Rana Fayez, about what to expect from this year’s festival (August 31 – September 2).
Read MoreImani visits the Blackstar film festival to see “Mr. Soul!,” a new documentary about late-1960s television broadcaster, Ellis Haizlip and his pioneering Black arts variety show Soul!. Here she speaks with the film’s cinematographer Hans Charles about his approach to documentary filmmaking and his new role as a producer.
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