Where could we go: A MAP OF FINDING HOME
coordinate 1 - The Root: Looking for Ancestors in my Father's Garden
In response to a larger national conversation during a pandemic that places our elders in a high risk category, Co-Creator Echaka Agba tries to find her way to knowing the grandparents she never met in talking to the generation of her family that immigrated to Indiana in the early 1980s from Nigeria. What is the cost of uprooting and how much care do we take to find new soil?
Coordinate 2: The Line In Bloom
What is the dream we have of a place when we close our eyes and listen? Taking off from our home base in Chicago, we extend the conversation to include the next generation. We travel to places we've called home in our past, Bloomington, Indiana and Brooklyn, New York to speak to members of the generation of our family who grew up in the US. We also begin to include chosen family and intimate partners in the conversations of what it means to name the things we hold dear when finding Home.
Coordinate 3: There’s Gold in These Hills
We meet Co-Creator Kristina Valada-Viars' family, whose members have moved significant distances, both emotional and physical, from their birthplaces and ancestral homes.
Coordinate 4: Pipelines AND Railroads
We travel the #59 City Of New Orleans from Chicago back to the first city we visited together. Rich in history of resistance and refuge, we explore why we felt so at ease here and continue our relationship with a community of artists in New Orleans facing similar challenges to our community in Chicago.
Coordinate 5: Ambassadors and Allies
Making home wherever we are together, we highlight our commitment to a practice of Anti-Colonialist travel by celebrating and promoting alternatives to burgeoning LGBTQ+ commercial tourism industries and the role of artists as ambassadors in eco-womanist community building with like-minded artists in The Caribbean and The Mediterranean.
Coordinate 6: Magic and Make Believe
WIth our new map in our pockets we reach across space and time to put the buried wisdom of those who came before us in new light. An experimental magical realism sequel to the history we were taught about our home and our selves.