Programs The Poetics of Caribbean Architecture

Join us at The Africa Center on Thursday, December 7th at 7PM, for The Poetics of Caribbean Architecture, an interactive writing workshop that explores the relationship between design and language of post-independent Caribbean countries and beyond. By meditating upon select works from June Jordan’s writing to Simone Leigh’s sculptures to Sucking Salt’s archival practice and more, this program invites audience members to embrace writing as a speculative design tool for reimagining fraught realities. Through examining the relationship between bodies and the environment, this workshop aims to engage with the poetics of relation that animate forms of rebellion, desire, and sovereignty throughout the Caribbean Diaspora.

 
Shameekia Shantel Johnson is a writer, curator, and researcher of Afro-Caribbean descent based in New York City. She received a BS in Art History and Museum Professions from The Fashion Institute of Technology. Johnson works from a critical framework of social architecture, in which she considers the multidimensional relationship between people, politics, narrative, and environment. Her curatorial contributions include black beyond: _assembly, alchemy, ascension (2022) at the Anna-Maria and Stephen Gallery of the New School; black beyond: _origins (2021) on New Art City; and The Complexity and Cost of Identity No. 1 (2021), staged at HOUSING. Johnson’s bylines include SEEN Journal, Forgotten Lands, Hyperallergic, Lucy Writers Platform, and Studio Museum Magazine. She has been featured in It’s Nice That and Cult Classic. Johnson is the creator of Poetry Room, a multidisciplinary platform where she explores the poetics of language, sound, visual art, movement, and design. Poetry Room programs may take shape as open mics and performances held in art institutions and alternative gathering spaces.

IG: shameekia.shameekia.shameekia | Website: shameekiashanteljohnson.com

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