24 May V’s Birthday Wish – RISE & Support the Artist Solidarity Fund
25 May is our Founder V’s (formerly Eve Ensler) birthday. To celebrate, please support the Artist Solidarity Fund for individual artists who are courageously rising with their plays, poems, paintings, novels, music in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic, fascism, oppression and occupation and violence in places like Brazil, Ukraine, Palestine and Afghanistan, where they are most needed. We need their voices now more than ever. We need their energy, inspiration, vision and magic. And they need our support more than ever so that we have ways of making meaning out of the chaos and struggle that defines these days.
Artist projects supported by the fund include: Poet, writer, producer jessica care moore’s first film project “He Looked Like a Postcard” is a Detroit love story. moore is writing and starring, and the film is being directed by Qasim Bassir. A fellowship supporting the vision of Célia Xakriabá, the voice of a new generation of female indigenous leaders who are leading the fight against the destruction of Brazil’s forests both in the Amazon and the lesser known Cerrado, a savannah that covers a fifth of the country. R’az Salvarita and Elle Divine have developed the CommUnity Creative Centre, a safe commUnity hub in the Philippines where women and girls are able to awaken their creativity through expressive arts healing – a refuge to revitalize, regenerate the bold spirit of the Divine Feminine within. The pop up project serves 9,000 women and girls. A New Orleans native whose work is rooted in relaying the healing, transformational power of music through song, Michaela Harrison’s Whale Whispering project addresses the history of sexual trauma experienced by Black women through the experiences of colonization, enslavement and the ongoing violence of white supremacy. Tapping into whale songs as repositories of the healing sounds of those who made the journey across the Atlantic during the Middle Passage and using collective singing and wailing as technologies for release and healing that can be accessed by all, the project draws the connections between violence against Black women and the broader context of gender-based violence in general as intricately tied to the climate crisis the world is currently facing and offers song as remedy.
Your donation will provide much needed assistance and hope for artist activists in these uncertain times.
Happy Birthday, V!
With Love & Solidarity,
Susan, Christine, Monique, Purva, Tony, Aja, Roslyn, Leila, Carl & Chloe