Live with Ashara Ekundayo, Esteban Kelly & Syrus Marcus Ware! (EP.40)

Work. Shouldn't. Suck. LIVE: The Morning(ish) Show with special guests Ashara Ekundayo, Esteban Kelly & Syrus Marcus Ware. [Live show recorded: June 8, 2020.]ASHARA EKUNDAYO is a Detroit-born independent curator, creative industries entrepreneur, cultural strategist, and founder working across arts, community, government, and social innovation spaces. Through her consulting company AECreative Consulting Partners, LLC she designs and manages multidimensional international projects and fosters collaborative relationships through the use of mindfulness and permaculture principles to bring vision to life and create opportunities “in the deep end,” often with unlikely allies. Her creative arts practice epistemology requires an embodied commitment to recognizing joy in the midst of struggle. // In 2012 Ashara co-founded Impact Hub Oakland and Omi Arts and served as the Co-Director, Curator, and the Chief Creative Officer who designed and bottom-lined the brand messaging and creative practice programming of the entire company. In December 2017, she launched Ashara Ekundayo Gallery as a pilot-project social practice platform centering and exclusively exhibiting the artwork of Black womxn and women of the African Diaspora to investigate and inspire social and spiritual inquiry at the nexus of fact, the Black feminist imaginary, and Afrofuturism through visual and performance installation. // She currently holds Advisory Board positions with VSCO.co, Black Girls Code and the Oakland Public Conservatory of Music, and has served as a Fellow with the U.S. Dept. of State Bureau of Educational & Cultural Affairs, Green For All, Emerging Arts Professionals, Schools Without Borders, and Institute For The Future. Ashara is also a Certified Permaculture Designer, Certified Foresight Practitioner, and a Graduate of Thousand Currents Leadership Academy and Rockwood Leadership – LeadNOW: California. Additionally, she holds an “Embodied Justice” Residency at Auburn Seminary in NYC, and an M.A. in Gender & Social Change from the Korbel School of International Affairs at the University of Denver. // Ashara’s commitment to social transformation is informed by an intersectional framework that aims to expand the influence and impact of arts and culture on racial equity, gender + justice, and environmental literacy. She is a womanist, a meditator, a mentor, and the mother of two sons and three granddaughters. T/IG @blublakwomynESTEBAN KELLY is a visionary leader and compassionate strategist who inspires organizers by drawing on science fiction, social theory, and collective liberation. Uniting close friends and long-time co-organizers, Esteban was inspired to co-create AORTA culling together his creative energy and organizational skills for expanding food sovereignty, solidarity economy & cooperative business, gender justice & queer liberation, and movements for racial justice. // Esteban’s work is vast. In addition to working for AORTA, he is the Co-Executive Director for the US Federation of Worker Co-ops (USFWC), and a co-founder and current board President of the cross-sector Philadelphia Area Cooperative Alliance (PACA). // Internationally, Esteban has advocated for workplace democracy through the ICA (International Cooperative Alliance) and CICOPA (the international worker co-op federation), and for land reform and other social movements from Canada to Brazil. // After many years as a PhD student of Marxist Geographers at the CUNY Graduate Center, Esteban has left academia with a Masters in Anthropology. Most recently, Esteban worked as Development Director and then Staff Director for the New Economy Coalition. From 2009-2011, Esteban served as Vice President of the USFWC, and a board member of the Democracy At Work Institute (DAWI) and the US Solidarity Economy Network. He is also a previous Director of Education & Training and Board President of NASCO (North American Students for Cooperation) where he was inducted into their Cooperative Hall of Fame in 2011. He currently serves on the boards of the Cooperative Development Foundation (CDF) and the National Cooperative Business Association (NCBA–CLUSA), and is an advisor to the network of artist-activist trainers, Beautiful Trouble. // Firmly rooted in West Philly, Esteban’s skills and analysis of transformative justice stem from his decade-plus of organizing with the Philly Stands Up collective. Similarly, Esteban worked through a major food co-op transition as a worker–owner at Mariposa Food Co-op, where he co-founded its Food Justice & Anti-Racism working group (FJAR) and labored to institutionalize the Mariposa Staff Collective. In light of these efforts, Esteban became a Mayoral appointee to the Philadelphia Food Policy Advisory Council (FPAC), and works to advance education, systemic thinking, and anti-oppression organizing into all of his food advocacy work. // You can contact Esteban at: esteban(at)aorta(dot)coop and follow him on Twitter: @estebantitosSYRUS MARCUS WARE uses painting, installation and performance to explore social justice frameworks and black activist culture. His work has been shown widely, including in a solo show at Grunt Gallery, Vancouver (2068:Touch Change) and new work commissioned for the 2019 Toronto Biennial of Art and the Ryerson Image Centre (Antarctica and Ancestors, Do You Read Us? (Dispatches from the Future)) and in group shows at the Art Gallery of Ontario, the University of Lethbridge Art Gallery, Art Gallery of York University, the Art Gallery of Windsor and as part of the curated content at Nuit Blanche 2017 (The Stolen People; Wont Back Down). His performance works have been part of festivals across Canada, including at Cripping The Stage (Harbourfront Centre, 2016, 2019), Complex Social Change (University of Lethbridge Art Gallery, 2015) and Decolonizing and Decriminalizing Trans Genres (University of Winnipeg, 2015). // He is part of the PDA (Performance Disability Art) Collective and co-programmed Crip Your World: An Intergalactic Queer/POC Sick and Disabled Extravaganza as part of Mayworks 2014. Syrus' recent curatorial projects include That’s So Gay (Gladstone Hotel, 2016-2019), Re:Purpose (Robert McLaughlin Gallery, 2014) and The Church Street Mural Project (Church-Wellesley Village, 2013). Syrus is also co-curator of The Cycle, a two-year disability arts performance initiative of the National Arts Centre. // Syrus is a core-team member of Black Lives Matter-Toronto. Syrus is a co-curator of Blackness Yes!/Blockorama. Syrus has won several awards, including the TD Diversity Award in 2017. Syrus was voted “Best Queer Activist” by NOW Magazine (2005) and was awarded the Steinert and Ferreiro Award (2012). Syrus is a facilitator/designer at the Banff Centre. Syrus is a PhD candidate at York University in the Faculty of Environmental Studies.