Sala: A Living Room of Ideas (S3Ep1)

Tune in to Lumpen Radio 105.5 FM for a live radio broadcast presented by Silvia Inés Gonzalez, the administrator of POCAS (People of Color Artist Space). This episode features artists from piecemeal, darien hunter golston, Bryanna Bibbs, and Forrest (Ọhịa)Parks, in discussion about environmental justice, weaving, remembering, foraging, kinship, and what it means to be “keepers of the earth.” How does the art of kinship show up in your practice and life? How do you define it? What sites of care do you imagine and work into existence through art, working with the land, or ritual?

darien hunter golston is a transdisciplinary domestic artist crafting with quilts, plants, natural pigments, weaving, wax, and soil. d labors to make refuge, repair, rest, and release possible for Black people between and beyond our ever-present moments of suffering. To honor the expanse of our need for care, darien’s practice is situated in a queer lens and politic. This perspective honors that erotic power & sexuality are essential in forging ways of living outside of, or fugitive to, systems of domination & control. darien’s practice is devoted to experimenting in sensuality, inspired by Harriet Jacobs’ “loophole of retreat”. His art attempts to create pocket spaces where freedom, ease, pleasure, and play are accessible and present – with a keen focus building joyful kinship with land. These experiments have yielded work in many forms including immersive installation, participatory workshops, archive-building, performance, curation, zines, land stewardship, and interactive sculptures. darien writes about these experiments in eir newsletter, piecemeal.  

Bryana Bibbs is a Chicago-based artist who works at the intersection of textiles, painting, and community-based practices. Bibbs earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts with an emphasis in Fiber and Material Studies at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She is the founder of “The We Were Never Alone Project – A Weaving Workshop for Victims and Survivors of Domestic Violence,” currently serves on the Surface Design Association’s Education Committee, and was named one of Newcity’s Breakout Artists of 2024. Bibbs has had recent solo exhibitions at the Chesterton Art Center (Chesterton, IN) and Tiger Strikes Asteroid (Chicago, IL). She has had recent group exhibitions at Chicago Art Department (Chicago, IL), Chicago Artists Coalition (Chicago, IL), Elmhurst Art Museum (Elmhurst, IL), Portland Library (Portland, ME), and George Marshall Store Gallery (York, ME). Bibbs has participated in residencies at Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts (Gatlinburg, TN), Surf Point Foundation (York, ME), the Lunder Institute for American Art (Waterville, ME), and Chicago Artists Coalition (Chicago, IL).

Forrest (Ọhịa) Parks is an herbalist, hacker, alchemist, multi-media artist and ancestor-in-training. They come from a long linage of storytellers, bridgebuilders, rebels, revolutionaries, and curious souls. Crafted from the stories that were passed down to them and from the breath of their elders. Ọhịa believes those parables hold the roadmaps to our collective, liberated, and unified futures. These tales filled them with exquisite imagery of past, present, and future possibilities. Ancestors, knowledge-holders and wisdom keepers have gifted them visions of what came before and conjure up visions of what shall come next. Ọhịa has forever been wrapped in their words and encaptured by the novels, novellas and actions of love that raised them and fed their soul. Ọhịa’s work in all forms is based upon, led by and in kinship with land, water, ancestor and awe.

Sala is an ongoing talk series anchoring the stories of artists in Chicago through topics such as grief, labor, immigration, and movement building. The multimedia project, now in its third season includes radio interviews, public programming, and an archival self-published zine is supported by Hyde Park Art Center’s Artists Run Chicago Fund as part of Art Design Chicago.