Past event: Taja Lindley
A screening of Taja Lindley’s short film, “This Ain’t A Eulogy: A Ritual for Re-Membering”was the foundation for a discussion between the artist and Ambassador Bonnie D. Jenkins, and an examination of the intersections of women, race, and dignity in our society.
Taja Lindley’s work draws parallels between discarded materials and the violent treatment of Black people in the United States. People in the African Diaspora have a long history of repurposing, remixing, and transforming oppressive systems into valuable cultural practices. Lindley is calling on this legacy to imagine how we can recycle the energy of protest, rage, and grief into creating a world where, indeed, Black Lives Matter.
The Women of Color Advancing Peace, Security and Conflict Transformation (WCAPS) Art Forum seeks to create a safe space to encourage new ways of understanding how issues of peace, security and conflict affect women of color globally, and bring more people into the discussion of these important issues. WCAPS addresses the absence of significant or sustained voices from women of color in discussions of issues affecting the global community such as global health, food and water security, climate change, peacekeeping, weapons of mass destruction nonproliferation, and the intersection of other areas of international security. Women of Color are often the most affected by issues of peace, security and conflict around the world.
Taja Lindley is an artist based in Brooklyn, New York creating socially engaged work that reflects and transforms audiences, shifts culture and moves people to action. She uses movement, text, installation, ritual, burlesque, and multi-media to create immersive works that are concerned with freedom, healing and pleasure. She is currently developing a body of work recycling and repurposing discarded materials. In addition to being an artist, Lindley is actively engaged in social movements as a writer, consultant, and facilitator. She is the founder of Colored Girls Hustle and a member of Echoing Ida and Harriet’s Apothecary.
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Ambassador Bonnie Jenkins is the Founder and President of “Women of Color Advancing Peace, Security and Conflict Transformation” or WCAPS, a new organization that is dedicated to creating a platform devoted to women of color that cultivates a strong voice and network for its members while encouraging dialogue and strategies for engaging in policy discussions on an international scale. She is also a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC. From 2009 – 2017, she served as Special Envoy and Coordinator for Threat Reduction Programs at the U.S. Department of State in the office of International Security & Nonproliferation.