Celestial Beings was a visual journalism project that collected oral stories, portraits, environments, and visual ephemera documenting Black femme spiritual practices as a healing art. CB captured the various ways women from the African diaspora have embraced spirituality in different forms and transformed their art into pathways for wholeness. The project was awarded a 2019 Ruby’s Artist Grant. See @thecelestialbeings on Instagram for a look back at the unfolding of this project.
VISION AND PURPOSE
Celestial Beings charts the intergenerational journeys of women and femmes of African descent who have infused spirituality in their creative practice. This may take shape in religious conversion, African spiritual traditions, tapping into astrology, or even exploring undecided contemplation. Celestial Beings will serve as a living art form to highlight deep interconnectedness, resilience, and truth created on this plane and above. The purpose of this project is to shine a light on the personal stories of Black women and femmes who identify as creative spiritual healers. Too often Black women are practitioners of services to others as mothers, caregivers, or spiritual guides and hardly care for themselves. Celestial Beings is a space for radical truth sharing on an individual, collective, and community level.
THE ARCHIVE
The Archive serves as an online repository documenting the conversations, portraits, photographs, audio, and video created in response to the interviews with several Black women creative healers in Baltimore. The Archive serves to break down silos and celebrate the wisdom of these Black women who do heart and soul work for themselves and others. See archival video on the Celestial Beings Youtube page.
THE ZINE
The Zine (Volume 1) and five featured posters are printed imaginings of several pieces in the Archive. The portraits, hand-lettered words pulled from quotes in interviews, and the narrators’ own creative responses to the concept of “Celestial Beings” come together as a kaleidoscopic weaving of storytelling, conversation, and daydreams. The Zine (Volume 1) features the five pilot Narrators who embarked on this journey in Spring 2020.
Get a copy of the zine or a poster through August 31, 2021 by navigating to celestial-beings-project.myshopify.com
