Hello from The Gambia
I am in The Gambia, West Africa. Forced to extend my stay due to the quarantine, I've decided to stay on for a year as an artist-in-residence. While here, I am being brave. I am investing my own earned income in the creation of new work and the continuation of research on my ancestral past. I also hope to create a permanent second residence to one day invite other artists to join me in the same.

During my residency, I have been able to work with both Gambian filmmakers and Atlanta-based collaborators to create a new visual short film filmed from the shores of West Africa to celebrate Juneteenth - the day of liberation recognizing the end of slavery in the US. The work features women in prayer through movement who from their different spaces in the world respond to the disproportionate loss of Black Lives during this current global pandemic and civil unrest.

The work draws on my Pentecostal upbringing which included dancing or "shouting" during worship, a practice that is understood to have come from what was called the Ring Shout.  In this traditional African-American worship practice, my ancestors danced in circle as a way to preserve their African identity during enslavement. While here in the Gambia I am exploring my ancestral memory of such practices and the origins of these traditions in indigenous ceremony. In the case of the Ring Shout, this assertion of African identity was an act of resistance to colonization and erasure, and it speaks to our resilience which affirms today our survival - ultimately saying (all along) that Black Lives Matter. 

I am in the Gambia, West Africa returning home as proof that prayer, that assertion of African identity, is what has kept us all of this time. It was what kept our ancestors who were stolen from these parts and carried on ships over the middle passage. LIFE is what kept us - this assertion of BLACK LIFE is what kept us all along. 

Please consider supporting this extended residency and this forthcoming work. Thank you in advance for your prayers and support as this moment for all of us requires bravery, I remain committed to the work of preserving Black Narratives.

Charmaine Minniefield
Visual Artist, Founder of the New Freedom Project


REQUEST FOR SUPPORT

It has taken 8 months for the quarantine to lift and the borders to open. With this uncertainty and the current civil unrest around race and injustice happening around the world, as an artist activist, I remain committed and respectfully request support in order to continue working as an artist  in residence. 

While here in The Gambia this residency  will allow me to : 

+Continue to explore ancestral and embodied memory through movement, dance and the Ring Shout - the traditional African American worship practice which informs my work and who’s West African origins predate enslavement;

+Continue my research on indigenous indigo practices and incorporate them into a new body of work on large scale canvas;

+Work with a 96 year old Gambian griot who has interviewed elder griots since the 1960’s, preserving over 150 years of oral histories which include pre colonial narratives for the National Archives,  connecting  his work and our interviews to my research at Emory’s Stuart A. Rose Library;

+Work with local nonprofit partner, The Smiling Coast Foundation  to offer community-based programming for youth including creating a 500 ft mural in the Gambia - while engaging Gambian artists with the goal of taking a team to a mural festival in nearby Dakar, Senegal in April 2021;

+Create virtual content for Remembrance as Resistance : Preserving Black Narratives, presented by Flux Projects, sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts, National Black Arts, The City of Atlanta and Emory University;

+Lay the groundwork for a tour of the Praise House Project in West Africa, building on connection in Senegal, Nigeria, Ghana, and Kenya. The tour will start with the construction and installation of a Praise House in The Gambia at Jufureh - the historic site of an infamous slave raid;

+Invite 5 Atlanta artists to join me for 1-3 month residencies to create a cultural exchange program with long term impact in both places. 

DONATION TIERS 

+Donors of $500 will receive a limited edition print of my original work 'Egbe'

+Donors of $250 will receive a small original indigo painting

+Donors of $100 will receive access to exclusive studio session via zoom from The Gambia

+Donors of $50 receive acknowledgement on my website as a donor


BIO

With a degree in Fine Art from Agnes Scott College, Charmaine Minniefield has served the Atlanta area as an artist and arts administrator working in communities for nearly 20 years.  She holds positions with such arts organizations as the National Black Arts Festival, the High Museum of Art and the Fulton County Department of Art and Culture, producing projects with such organizations as Alternate ROOTS, Points of Light and Flux Projects. Minniefield has recently served as faculty for the Art and Visual Culture Department of Spelman College and as faculty for Freedom University, an underground university for undocumented students..  She is currently an artist-in-residence at Emory University through a collaboration with Flux Projects. Charmaine Minniefield was  featured as an Atlanta change-maker by Mercedes Benz as a part of their recent Greatness Lives Here  campaign. Her recent murals which depict “Women Who Shaped the Future” in Brooklyn, NY were commissioned by the Federal Government for the commercial for the #2020Census. To learn more about Charmaine, her work, and her mission, click here. You can also visit her website, www.charmaineminniefield.com , to contact her directly, view and purchase her work, and follow her journey. 

ABOUT THE NEW FREEDOM PROJECT

The New Freedom Project encourages creative expression, collaboration and community partnerships which use art at its center to address issues of social justice. It is the effort of the New Freedom Project to leverage resources and assets in communities in order to bring artists together with civic leaders, volunteers, arts and cultural agencies, nonprofit organizations, and government entities to create meaningful change and solutions for systemic issues around civil and human rights today.

 The New Freedom Project believes that art can be a catalyst for change and that the principles of creative collaboration can serve as a foundation for dialogue and ultimately understanding so that collective progress can be made towards common goals of justice, equity, and freedom.
“I have always wanted my art to service my people — to reflect us, to relate to us, to stimulate us, to make us aware of our potential.” -  Elizabeth Catlett