September 18, 2023 | Race & Equity, Events, General, Leadership,

The Black and Indigenous Futures Convening

From September 20-21, 2023, ArtsEmerson and Howlround Theatre Commons will be joined by artists, educators, practitioners and scholars for the Black and Indigenous Futures Convening — a gathering with the purpose of examining history while imagining new futures.

The Convening goals are to:

• Collectively learn from our Black, Indigenous, and Afro-Indigenous colleagues (inside and outside of the arts field) about their lived professional and personal experiences;
• Explore questions around what a Black and Indigenous co-leadership culture looks like;
• Identify national and local opportunities and challenges of Black and Indigenous collaborative leadership and—ultimately—solidarity;
• Investigate how ArtsEmerson in partnership with HowlRound can contribute to the arts field at large through this inquiry.

ArtsEmerson’s leadership of David Howse and Ronee Penoi, who are Black and Indigenous, respectively, are committed to imagining a better future for Black and Indigenous peoples both in the arts and in Boston. Read more from Howse and Penoi on decolonizing arts leadership through shared Black and Indigenous leadership.

This season, ArtsEmerson is proud to present We Are the Land, a performance from the Wampanoag people, who will tell their story of their relationship to the soil, how it was taken away, and how the nation has re-established themselves in a way that both honors their ancestors and looks toward the future.

Two discussions from the convening will be streamed live:

9/20 – 11:15 a.m. – 12 p.m. EDT: Black and Indigenous Histories to the Now: How We Carry Our Past into the Present

9/21 10:00 a.m. – 10:45 a.m. EDT: Black and Indigenous Futures: Aligning Our Visions and Activism

To read more about the Convening, please visit Howlround.