Liberation is a praxis in the communal service of good.
To seek liberty is to have empathy, with one’s self, identity and community, as well as with other identities and communities outside of our own.
Those who seek liberty know that they live as activists in the service of others: for communities, for generations unmade, for better futures, for all people, all of the world.
This pursuit, though it may seem noble, makes a damning demand of us all. It demands that we constantly address the questions of violence everywhere all the time.
To work in pursuit of liberation is to remain critical, yet apply radically creative thinking, to constantly imagine and reimagine a world of equality and inclusion for all humanity.
In imagining a world driven solely by a universal need to do good by others, we are able to act in ways which put into practice measures, policies, and actions which divest from capitalist individualism and instead, give in to the people-power of diversity and communitarianism.
It is imperative that we allow ourselves to dream, remembering the intersectionalities of our oppression as well as the colonial legacies and powers that persist yet still. That in choosing better, we continue to imagine even bolder visions for our humanity’s future.
A future boldly liberated with us, all of us free.
Hues of Liberation is an attempt to weave, perhaps like Joseph’s coat, a tapestry of the varied talents and skills united by a desire to dream, imagining a world we want.
By decolonizing art, creating and curating spaces of knowledge, sharing and learning, of self expression and community, Drama Queens is able to put into effect our desire to effect change in the service of others, towards the collective liberation of all people. Hues of Liberation represents the varied forms of living art all of our advocacy takes. The projects, activations, words, short films, art and productions against neoliberalism and western commodifications of art, center community and accessibility to art appreciation.
Drama Queens is an Intersectional, Feminist, Pan-Africanist, Queer, Youth-led, collective of Artistic Activists, an ode to queer, black, African feminists and all the ways they’ve held space for nurturing, growth and self expression. Drama Queens exists as a protest against gender-based violence, climate change and the pillaging of our planet for consumerism and profit-driven business models. We exist against homophobia, transphobia and queerphobia, as well as all forms of colonialism and neo-colonialism, including the colonial occupations of Congolese lands, fear mongering and violence inciting in Francophone Africa, pillaging in Sudan and of zionist illegal occupation of Palestinian territory the threats to civic space and democratic expression, anti-gender terrorism, the silencing of critical voices of political dissent and civil society, as well as the global crushing of civic space and the freedom of self-expression.
Through art, film, theatre and conversation, Drama Queens exists and operates in defiance of all of these, a space for radical reimagination.
Today, we attempt to put in one space, glimpses of all that we are, a cross-section of what intersectionality means to us.
These installations gathered in this space are shades of our artistic activism, phases that speak of our realities and through which we work towards channeling humanity towards oneness.
These are curated from our work this past year for your viewing and reflective pleasure.
For your dedication to learning and growing with us, in shining your colors and working towards liberation with us, we are honored to have you, our community, our network, share with us this curation.
May our liberation hard won for us never bleed out of colour.
May the vibrance of our dreams of a brave new world of equality ignite the faith of righteous indignation, to shake awake and resist the fundamentalism that urges fascist violence upon humanity.
May we never cease to resist oppressor’s rule.
by Sesie Q. Kumah