In response to the current COVID-19 pandemic, WE BEEN HERE serves as a virtual artist presentation & Kickback series centering trans and non-binary artists who are engaging with, influenced by, or in conversation with poetry. This series is a way to compensate trans and non-binary artists internationally who have faced deficits in income due to the pandemic, as well as to create a space where we can converse, share our work, and be. WE BEEN HERE, is an ode to non-binary and trans past and futures. Each event will include artist presentations, artist talks, and interpersonal Q& A sessions.

This event will be hosted by Golden, a City of Boston 2020 artist-in-residence. Through the Boston Artists-in-Residence (AIR) program, artists work with a parallel cohort of City partners to explore, critique, and re-imagine City initiatives at the intersection of civil service, social justice, and artistic practice. This year, Golden is working with the Mayor’s Office of Women’s Advancement.

REGISTER

The link to the event will be sent out and posted soon.

Diaspora - Featured Artists

• George Abraham ( they/them preferred, he/him acceptable )

George Abraham is a Palestinian American poet from Jacksonville, Florida. They are the author of Birthright (Button Poetry, 2020), and the chapbooks: the specimen's apology (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2019) and al youm (TAR, 2017). He is a board member for the Radius of Arab American Writers (RAWI), a Kundiman and Watering Hole fellow, and a recipient of the College Union Poetry Slam International's Best Poet title. He is currently based in Massachusetts, where he is a PhD candidate in Bioengineering at Harvard University. @IntifadaBatata (Twitter/Instagram).

• Katytarika Bartel (they/them/theirs)

Katytarika Bartel is an artist, educator, and organizer based in Lowell, Massachusetts. Bartel is a queer Thai-American poet, photographer, and award-winning filmmaker interested in shining light on spaces of in-between. Their work has been featured in the likes of the International Center of Photography (New York), Pao Arts Gallery (Boston), the Boston Asian American Film Festival, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, University of Massachusetts Amherst, and New York University. They recently published their first poetry chapbook, “how they love,” available at Blurb. Bartel is the co-founder and co-director of the Boston-based art collective, ANGRY ASIAN GIRLS, which works actively in the community to promote and uplift the narratives of APIA young folks. They are fiercely passionate about making photography more accessible in public schools, letting young people do things, and the color yellow. @katytarika (Instagram).

• Zenaida Peterson (They/Them/Theirs)

Zenaida Peterson, Button chapbook contest finalist and author of “Breakfast for Dinner and Other Blasphemous Things” published by Pizza Pi Press is an organizer, a house plant gardener and a Black non-binary poet from the south currently thriving in Boston, Massachusetts. They are the founding director of Feminine Empowerment Movement Slam (FEMS), an all ages radical poetry slam centering marginalized people and celebrating the feminine. They have competed in 5 and coached 2 national poetry slam competitions placing in the top 10 each time. They are prepping for the apocalypse by learning to make plant medicine, engaging in restorative justice and farming. Outside of community work they spend their time recruiting and doing equity work with Quaker Voluntary Service. Their current project is spending each month of 2020 conquering a different fear of theirs. @puppet_mcfly (Twitter/Instagram).

• Paul Tran (they/them)

Paul Tran is the recipient of the Ruth Lilly & Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation and the Discovery/Boston Review Poetry Prize. Their work appears in The New Yorker, Poetry Magazine, and elsewhere, including the movie Love Beats Rhymes with Azealia Banks, Common, and Jill Scott. They are the Senior Poetry Fellow at Washington University in St. Louis and Poetry Editor at The Offing Magazine. @speakdeadly (Twitter and Instagram)

Keep up to date with the latest events

_________________