Amplify & Ignite: Creative Practice in and With Communities

Black women and femmes who exist on dis bitter earth do not except that we must be the caretakers of the world and of ourselves without the communal support of our village. We deserve to do more than just survive. "In Danger Species/Baby Girl, How Does Your Garden Grow?", follows Patrica Hill Collins invocation to start with the self andour interpersonal identities. Rootedin Kemi Adeymedi's lean theory, the digital interactive theatrical performance included me embodying a sunflower and giving my audience the role of "community gardener" to "water me" when they think I need it, to see if I would be cared for if I were a sunflower and not an Afro-Indigenous woman. This performance uses my angularity to the ground to signal wilting and co-performative witnessing my D. Soyini Madison, inviting the audience to perform with me in their role of "community gardener". This project asks what care looks like and if there is an urgency behind that caretaking responsibility. I wanted to take this on because I must go through the world outside of being a sunflower. And when in the wrong company, I must protect myself from wilting.