The inaugural 2022 Washington Heights Womanist Arts Festival is a performing arts festival inspired by Alice Walker's Womanist prose from her seminal text, In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens that blends feminist practice with the traditions of Black women. /When you’re ready to look north of downtown for the arts, WaHi will greet you with art as experience, as gathering, as loving, as wailing, as daring, as healing./
A space needed that has yet to be created. This is a call to recognize our desire to connect with ourselves and each other while sharing the collective responsibility of healing in community without solely placing the responsibility on the Black woman. In the spirit of the Womanist movement we seek to exist in the liminal space outside of patriarchy and white supremacy that has often co-opted our liberatory work. This 2-day performing arts festival is harnessing the dopeness of our local artists as a site for shared healing through song, movement, truth telling and the act of breaking bread over the weekend of September 10-11, 2022. Anchored by a pre-event salon discussion hosted by Carol Jenkins at WordUp Bookshop and a *100+ seated community potluck dinner, block party and Jam session hosted by community organizer and chef, Sarah Grosman and The Soapbox Presents. This FREE event is open to all while centering our WaHi community. If you would like to support our efforts around the creation of this festival event, please consider donating on our crowdfunding page linked here: https://fundraising.fracturedatlas.org/washington-heights-womanist-arts-festival/campaigns/4841
Womanist (n.): "3. Loves love and food and roundness. Loves struggle. Loves the Folk. Loves herself. Regardless."
- Alice Walker, In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens
