Join us alongside cotton plants + fibers as we reflect on the plant's relationship to protection crafts, amulets, and resistance.
CURE: Rituals of Protection is a collaborative series (combining the CURE and Rituals of Protection projects) led by land stewards and artists who have ancestral relationships to the cotton plant.
During this session, Crafting Cotton Amulets, we’ll revisit our cotton plants as their bolls begin to bloom and deepen our discussion of protection crafts, amulets, and resistance in African diasporic regions particularly the spiritual practices of Southern US.
Participants will be guided through the process of crafting an amulet keepsake with raw cotton and other plant materials. We’ll go through harvest, preparations, conceptualizing, and practicing simple sewing skills to construct the amulet. Refreshments will be served.
We’re also very excited to welcome special guest, draftsperson, interpretive archivist, writer and curator Steve Anthony Johnson II in joining us (Ashni + Maya) for this session!
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*CURE: Rituals of Protection, combines the CURE and Rituals of Protection projects, with support from Deep Routes, Mumbet’s Freedom Farm and local sponsors.
CURE (Cultivating Understanding and Restoring the Earth) is a Mumbet’s Freedom Farm project intending to nourish and center the experiences of those who identify as Black, Indigenous, as well as anyone with an inherited history of colonization in the Americas.
Rituals of Protection is an artist-led project of cultural remembrance, reconnection, and reflection for people within the Southern African-American diaspora. This interdisciplinary offering is intended to support community members in learning about and engaging with the histories of crafting with plants as a means of protection and resistance in the Southern U.S.
🌿Please NOTE: All of our events center those within Afro-Indigenous diasporas, and cotton is one with a particularly painful (albiet relatively recent) history and we want this opening session to be a safer space for people of Black/African and Indigenous diasporas to engage with it. Please register with that in mind. 🌿