Friends of the Children Seattle marketing coordinator Brandi Li discusses growing up and finding a cultural home in the International District and experiencing the shifts brought about by gentrification, as well as complications of representation and access within community organizing spaces.

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Learn more about all UN-[TITLED] project offerings here:
https://www.imagineevolve.org/the-un-titled-project or on Instagram at @ untitledpeoples

Brandi Li — Mapping Memory

"It just felt like I was was losing a community...just all of these things that not only brought me comfort but it brought me a sense of…I guess permanence. It never occurred to me that it wouldn't be there at some point. It was there for a long time and now it's not."
 
Gloria Jackson-Nefertiti, artist model and public speaker for Neurodivergence and Sex Positive Culture, who has lived in Seattle since 1990, speaks on the loss of community meeting sites and businesses in the Central District, as well as finding community and home in online and virtual spaces.


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Learn more about all UN-[TITLED] project offerings here:
https://www.imagineevolve.org/the-un-titled-project or on Instagram at @ untitledpeoples

Gloria Jackson-Nefertiti — Locating Safe Spaces

"You know, society does change over time, and communities change. So what we're really looking at is, within that change, how we best adapt to maintain culture and also maintain kindness."
 
Laurie Wilson discusses her experiences as one of the first Black woman architects in Seattle, recent developments and opportunities in affordable housing, and how to steward positive and community-driven change.


__________________
Learn more about all UN-[TITLED] project offerings here:
https://www.imagineevolve.org/the-un-titled-project or on Instagram at @ untitledpeoples

Laurie Wilson — Architectures of Belonging

“These new residents put up ordinances, or restrictions — even though they are baseless — on people gathering and lingering …In that sense, you take away these opportunities for people to be in community.” 

Masha Barnett, Black Home Initiative Coordinator for the Seattle Civic Commons, speaks on redevelopment and gentrification and its impacts on patterns of gathering, lingering, and connection, as well as the effects of a rising cost of living on families.


__________________
Learn more about all UN-[TITLED] project offerings here:
https://www.imagineevolve.org/the-un-titled-project or on Instagram at @ untitledpeoples

Maisha Barnett — Lineages & Gathering

“It’s important that we not only share our stories, but we also create a platform for for our stories to be exalted.” 

TraeAnna Holiday is a local communications director, media personality, TV show host, director, and producer with Converge Media Seattle, among other outlets.  She speaks about the tensions between making profit and preserving cultural and generational legacies, growing up and seeking cultural anchors, and using media as a conduit for disrupting gentrification and uplifting Black communities and their stories.

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Learn more about all UN-[TITLED] project offerings here:
https://www.imagineevolve.org/the-un-titled-project or on Instagram at @ untitledpeoples

TraeAnna Holiday — Community Anchors & Uplifting Stories

“How do we speak to these pains and generational shifts, but also speak to how we were known before, and will be known after without interruption? There is no part of us that is unrecognizable to the people whose lives we will change in the future, or the people who once bore what they did so that we could be here now.” 

Stacy Torres, who does healing and abolition work in Q/T/DBIPoC communities in Seattle, discusses intersections with redlining in historically Black communities and colonial seizure of Indigenous lands, how home resides in the body and its connection to reclaimed landscapes, and being open to cultural inheritance and adapting for action and reclamation in the present.

__________________
Learn more about all UN-[TITLED] project offerings here:
https://www.imagineevolve.org/the-un-titled-project or on Instagram at @ untitledpeoples

Stacy Torres — Embodied Landscapes

“For Black people and Black families — the only possible way we could ever have our family members live back in Seattle, or have a home for that matter, is to build a home on our own property…that’s a reason for us to keep our land — it’s no longer just our family’s wealth, but it’s our family’s security.”

Housing advocate Ruby Holland discusses inequities in Seattle real estate and the exploitative and predatory actions of white developers that lead to Black families and communities losing property, as well as actions taken by Black leaders in Seattle to fight against these discriminatory practices and reclaim space to build a home.


__________________
Learn more about all UN-[TITLED] project offerings here:
https://www.imagineevolve.org/the-un-titled-project or on Instagram at @ untitledpeoples

Ruby Holland — Property Rights & Intergenerational Stability

“The way they’re building houses now...they’re intentionally setting it up so people don’t stay. People aren’t raising their families here. There’s no longevity — and that’s not intended in the way they’re building homes.” 

Maria Kang, who works in prison education and re-entry, discusses changes to living space brought on by gentrification that prevent longevity and intergenerational support and stability, as well as the joy of finding spaces for BIPOC community, culture, and art in the city.


__________________
Learn more about all UN-[TITLED] project offerings here:
https://www.imagineevolve.org/the-un-titled-project or on Instagram at @ untitledpeoples

Maria Kang — Growing Roots

"I hope that we are actively documenting all the work that we're putting in, and in everything that we're doing. So that if it's 25 years later and something changes, people can say this was here, and this is the impact, and I remember…"
  
Jazmyn Scott, executive director of ARTE NOIR, who was born and raised in the Central District, speaks on the gradual displacement of Black families from the Central District, as well as the frustrations and joys of returning to and reclaiming cultural space within the district.


__________________
Learn more about all UN-[TITLED] project offerings here:
https://www.imagineevolve.org/the-un-titled-project or on Instagram at @untitledpeoples

Jazmyn Scott — Reclaiming Cultural Space

“How do we not whitewash the CID? How do we not create Asian Disneylands with our communities and remember the legacy and histories of these places that our ancestors have found as landing spots?”  

Nurse and community organizer JM Wong discusses the importance of supporting unhoused folks in Seattle communities, preserving Chinatown communities, and the complicated space that immigrants occupy within systems of settler colonialism.


__________________
Learn more about all UN-[TITLED] project offerings here:
https://www.imagineevolve.org/the-un-titled-project or on Instagram at @untitledpeoples

JM Wong — Preservation & Ancestral Space

“[It’s important that we] spend some time thinking about pandemic recovery, not just in the short term, but imagining more broadly — what are the things we need to do so that the communities that people flock to for touristic reasons are the communities where people can afford to live in Seattle – not because of cultural tourism, but because the city loves them?”

Artist and cultural worker C Davida Ingram speaks on cultural revitalizations in the Central District, and ways we can expand our notions of housing justice and security, mutual aid, and community to allow for more culture to be invited back into gentrified areas.


__________________
Learn more about all UN-[TITLED] project offerings here:
https://www.imagineevolve.org/the-un-titled-project or on Instagram at @ untitledpeoples

Davida Ingram — Rethinking Housing Justice & Security

Original poem written and recited by Kamari Bright for the UN-[TITLED] Project, recorded in Kamari's home studio.  
https://www.kamaribright.com/

More UN-[TITLED] project offerings, including Sounds of Memory here:
https://www.imagineevolve.org/the-un-titled-project/music-and-poetry

UN-[TITLED] Poem — Kamari Bright

Original song written and composed by Benjamin Hunter for the UN-[TITLED] Project, recorded in Ben's home studio and at Jack Straw Cultural Center.  
https://www.benjaminhuntermusic.com/

UN-[TITLED] — Benjamin Hunter

Original song written and composed by Benjamin Hunter for the UN-[TITLED] Project, recorded in Ben's home studio and at Jack Straw Cultural Center.  
https://www.benjaminhuntermusic.com/

More UN-[TITLED] project offerings, including Sounds of Memory here:
https://www.imagineevolve.org/the-un-titled-project

The Sound — Benjamin Hunter

Original song written and composed by Benjamin Hunter for the UN-[TITLED] Project, recorded in Ben's home studio and at Jack Straw Cultural Center.  
https://www.benjaminhuntermusic.com/


More UN-[TITLED] project offerings, including Sounds of Memory here:
https://www.imagineevolve.org/the-un-titled-project/music-and-poetry

Seattle Symphony — Benjamin Hunter

Hye Won Hye — Benjamin Hunter

Counting Hallelujahs — Benjamin Hunter

Part of the UN-[TITLED] immersive performance offerings, this selection of Oral Histories was played for audiences on their Seattle shuttle ride from INSCAPE Arts (Chinatown Int'l District) to Wa Na Wari (Central District)

Route Soundtrack Featuring:  JM Wong, Karen Akada Sakata, Brandi Li, Gloria Nefertiti Jackson, Maisha Barnett, Ruby Holland, C. Davida Ingram, Maria Kang. 

Track edit: By Berette Macaulay
Music, Seattle Symphony Soundscape: by Benjamin Hunter.

More about the shuttle route and project mappings here:
https://www.imagineevolve.org/the-un-titled-project/site-maps

Sounds of Memory | Oral History Shuttle Ride track

i•ma•gine | e•volve is an intersectional multimedia arts incubator supporting cultural, educational, and creative projects

Projects include:  UN-[TITLED], Black Cinema Collective, We Do Declare, and Peelback Poetry

www.imagineevolve.org

i•ma•gine | e•volve

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