COMPLEX MOVEMENTS

Complex Movements is my Detroit-based artist collective supporting the transformation of communities by exploring the connections of complex science and social justice movements through multimedia interactive performance work. The collective is made up of cultural workers, organizers, and artists who started their work rooted in the Detroit community and, after having known each other for years as collaborators in the hip hop scene, social justice movements, and youth organizing. Members include: Myself,  ill weaver, Carlos (L05) Garcia, Waajeed, and Sage Crump.

Our research is prompted by world events, science-fiction, local organizing strategies, and the philosophies of our elders and mentors including Grace Lee Boggs, and Aneb Kglistole (Gloria House). Inspired by the metaphors uncovered during our research, we formed a set of guiding principles centered around themes of collective leadership, scale, interconnectedness, cooperative economics, uncertainty, and decentralized networks. We assigned symbolic images to these principles and used them as teaching tools, informal social contracts with which to engage our community partners, and raw material for generating art and music. Much of this research is embedded in Adreinne Marie Brown’s book Emergency Strategy published in 2017.

The nature of our work calls for us to be individually specialized in different skill sets and expertise. We all call on our common experience in Hip Hop as performers, business partners, producers, and DJs to push our viewpoint and aesthetic. Due to the scale, depth, and ambition of our work, we are at the center of a concentric ecosystem of core collaborators that include artists, activists, architects, musicians, scientists, game designers, technologists, organizers, writers, educators, thinkers, and communities.

After seven years, larger patterns and themes are emerging within our collective practice, and we are gaining a fuller understanding of what we are doing and what truly compels us. Our goals have always been to uplift and highlight untold stories, and we have great respect and affinity for the genius of our elders and the knowledge they produce. We uplift the brilliance of our ancestors, who loved their communities and fought hard to keep them strong and vibrant, and find their writings and actions progressive, anticipatory, and relevant to today. We see our work as a bridge between activist thought and artistic practice, and through this work we collect community, ancestor, and elder knowledge, translating it into performance and aesthetically innovative immersive experiences.

My role:

I am a founding member, a lead artist and art director. I devise performances and exhibitions with my collective members. I do branding for the collective, and create the majority of the visual content. For performances, I co-design the spaces and stages, I participate in world building and writing, I create animation, and video and design immersive interactive experiences. I co-plan and administer community building workshops and other activities. I also design and facilitate workshops and do much of the grant writing and fundraising support. As a collective share the responsibilities of leadership and management.