Foster ‘janae’
Williams
foster JANAE weems (she/they) is an interdependent-disciplinary artist of Afrolachian heritage. she is the loudest thing that god made, a gatherer of niggas, an inciter of play and experimentation and a practicer of care. Spirit, grief and wholeness are central to her work of unsettling the mess of who we are.
Ultimately, foster works to understand how we can craft more expansive space to be exactly who we are in loving communities of deepened rest, care pleasure, play and ease. to be.
Black Intimacy Practice:
Black Intimacy project is an incubator and knowledge co-production space for fat black queer and trans somatic artists, dancers and practitioners.
ALLUS
ALLUS: a world of over 2500 painted figures serving as meditations on the expansive possibilities for black life.
fatniggaAI
fatniggaAI: pushing ai wigs back to see us in ways only we can.
And then there’s @fatniggaai, a 33-year-old North Carolina artist who asked that BuzzFeed News not use her real name. @fatniggaai describes her AI art as a visual ode to “those who are fat, Black, dark-skinned, queer, trans, working-class poor, who access education outside of institutions, who are crazy/mad and who are hood.” They largely use Midjourney to create their art, which ranges from the “playful” and “unthinkably gorgeous” to the more terrifying.
“My AI work is an extension of me inviting myself and other fat, Black queer trans folks to see ourselves in the most expansive way possible,” said @fatniggaai, who added that she wasn’t particularly into sci-fi, but appreciated the worldbuilding aspect of it. “What I'm really interested in with my AI art is depictions of fat, Black queer and trans folks that are rooted in not being beautiful but rooted in being terrifying and looking very off-putting while also spilling over with agency.”
PLAY CHURCH
Play Church is a space that nourishes and is nourished by the creative visions of black queer and trans artists.
We are a gathering space that encourages intergenerational cross pollination. We are a hub for art, creation and making of all kinds.
We provide tools, technology and the knowledge to be able to use them.
We practice pleasure and cultivate community around our emerging practices.
We gather, create, play, dream and feel our way into envisioning worlds that hold our wholeness and nurture it.