
Help Ana create new art work at summer workshops!
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Ana Jahannes is a queer Black Colombian American artist, designer and space-maker working in New Orleans. She observes the spaces where the Black diaspora, especially queer and trans Black folks, come alive. Utilizing interior design, performance and craft, she creates work that proposes new models for collective and self expressions of joy, vitality and vibrancy.
Ana will be attending two workshops this summer at Penland School of Craft in North Carolina (Summer Session 5), and the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts in Maine.
Help her by donating for travel and material funds, and share this with your people!
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All funds raised here will go directly to Ana.
Read on to learn more about Ana and her amazing new work your donation is helping to support.
“This year I’m undertaking my biggest multidisciplinary project yet. I will be researching, designing and crafting each element of an installation that is a contemporary take on a traditional New Orleans shotgun style front porch.
I see the front porch as a space with many meanings. First it is a liminal space, a both public and private space at once, where people not only come and go, but also stay, post up. It is a site of Black joy, of raucous laughter, of dancing, of “good afternoons” and head nods, of people watching, of cooling down, and of relaxation. This piece of architecture helps make all this happen, but it is Black culture that truly brings it to life. Given that the French, Spanish, Italian, Greek are all given credit for the styles they brought to New Orleans architecture, I want to highlight Creole, Caribbean and African influence on our history and present day spaces and way of life. What I’d like to do in my project is to reimagine a front porch from the perspective of a 2024 Black millennial and give this porch design elements of contemporary Black culture, with motifs that represent my family, my community and my values, while still honoring the traditional shotgun style porches from the past.
This summer I will be taking my research and designs, and begin to make all the different elements of my installation. In July, I’ll attend a workshop in Tennessee at Penland School of Craft to learn a style of chair made by Richard Poyner, a formerly enslaved man, who pioneered a unique take on a side chair, and I will be creating my own version of a rocking chair. Then in August I will be traveling to Maine to the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts to learn pattern making which I will then use to make corbels, architectural brackets used to hold up and decorate the roof overhang on many New Orleans homes. Other projects include ceramic tile for the floor and wind chimes to hang nearby the sweetgrass woven ceiling fan.
I am beyond thrilled at the opportunity of taking time away to do what I love, and only that, which is learning crafts and applying that to my larger goal of creating spaces for Black joy. I'm particularly excited to have the chance to study with Robell Awake Malene Barnett. What a dream to learn from other Black artists who I believe see and create in a way that aligns with my cultural specificities and values."
Organizer and beneficiary

Emma Raynor
Organizer
New Orleans, LA
Ana Jahannes
Beneficiary