ART FOR LIBERATION
We are delighted to announce that Sadie Nash will be working alongside Karla Robinson through Creatives Rebuild New York’s (CRNY) Artist Employment Program grant!
Meet Karla Robinson (she/her): Poet, conceptual artist, cultural organizer, curator and arts educator
CRNY offers a pathway to transforming relationships between artists and organizations, recognizing that equitable relationships encourage creative solutions, expansive thinking, and new methods of engagement while building capacity and stability for all involved.
Karla has worked with SNLP Partnership Program at New Settlement Program for Girls and Young Women in the Bronx and will now be developing curriculum that centers the poetics of Black Feminist movement herstory and inspires personal creative expression. We are honored to have Karla back on board and are excited to ask her some questions about this incredible collaboration. This is what she had to say…
Tell us a bit about yourself?
My name is Karla Robinson, my pronouns are she/her. I was born and raised, and still live in the Bronx. As a community-based arts educator, I use poetry, installation and facilitation to support people that are caught at the intersection of multiple state institutions rooted in oppression. My lived experience as a Black woman from the Bronx, led me to create spaces where we can bring our full selves. My work concentrates on the conditions that allow us to live in a world rooted in love and liberation.
What brought you to Sadie Nash?
I first joined Sadie Nash in 2017 through the partnership program and worked at New Settlement from 2017-2021. I’ve been a long time arts educator and have worked at nonprofits, but I was looking for a space to work with young people and delve explicitly into movements for liberation and really connect with what's going on in the world from their perspectives. I’m excited to come back to Sadie Nash, feeling free to delve into important conversations like the ways that white supremacy impacts our lives and our identities. It’s a breath of fresh air.
What inspired you to become a community-based artist? What does that title mean to you?
Becoming a community-based artist was seeded in me by my parents, who always believed in leaving the world greater than you found it. There is a privilege of being in creative spaces and transforming how I think and what I think. Now, I’m able to create this space so that we can re-envision our world together.
Being an artist is bigger than just me. It means utilizing the arts to bring communities together. The work is in the relationships, and the space we create can help build the muscles to live more lovingly and freely.
How have you been able to incorporate art into the work you do with Nashers?
Poetry and creative writing is in everything I do. It’s important to document our own lives in our own words, especially for people from historically marginalized communities. All of my work has a self-determination aspect. Poetry has also played a crucial role in liberation movements and creative expression-- both in processing what's happening around us and in sustaining those movements.
What are some of the projects we can expect to see from this collaboration?
The long-term vision for this project is the creation of Document. Dream. Disrupt., a community-centered boutique press located in the Bronx and led by women and gender-expansive people of color, inspired by the radical abolitionist tradition of the Combahee River Collective and the subsequent Kitchen Table Press.
What do you hope the outcome will be? What do you hope to accomplish?
I hope to create a space where folks can come together to co-create active spaces of liberation, to nurture creative practice and freedom practice with ourselves and each other. I hope that we’ll be able to create a space where young people can tell their stories and that those narratives can stand alongside mainstream media because that balance is important, especially for us in this moment and the folks who come after us.
What advice do you have for any Nashers who are interested in pursuing a creative practice?
Let’s go! Start and keep going. So much can be accomplished in just 15 minutes a day. I have had so much healing come from my creative practice. I thought I needed to have huge outlets of creative brilliance, but these small bursts are actually more generative-- taking those little chunks as you can find them. Also, committing to yourself and knowing that it is worthy of being documented.
Our 20th anniversary tagline is “Act with Love, Act for Liberation” What does that mean to you?
I love it! It speaks to me and makes me think about how we need to have a nuanced, layered approach to all that we do. Are we acting with love? Are we acting for liberation? It can be a touchstone and a way to check in with myself, a path to take and a way to help us get back on track.
What are you most excited about with regards to this collaboration?
Building strong relationships with Nashers, with Sadie Nash staff, with other faculty, with artists and being able to nurture and cultivate creative space in the Bronx that reflects our beauty and brilliance.