The Kitchen Sisters – radio producers Davia Nelson and Nikki Silva – and performance artists Sitalbanat Muktari and Ellen Sebastian Chang are creating an intergenerational collaboration titled The Keepers: House/Full of Black Women, that will result in an hour-long radio documentary, several podcasts, and social media stories about the keeping, archiving, and passing on of Black women’s herstories.
The archive will be based on the lives, stories, and art of the women who created the Oakland performance group House/Full of Black Women. Sitalbanat Muktari is a young, Nigerian American Bay Area artist, and Ellen Sebastian Chang is a veteran artist, director, and community storyteller. The group House/Full of Black Women, of which they are members, has been creating site specific rituals and gatherings in the streets of Oakland since 2015, drawing in audiences to watch, participate, learn, remember and bear witness. These creators ask, “How can we, as Black women and girls, find space to breathe and be well within a stable home?”
Additional participants include Amara Tabor Smith, Rami Margron, Tossie Long, Chris Evans, Nkeiruka Oruche, Zakiya Harris, Amber McZeal, Stephanie Johnson, Yvette Aldama, Asatu, and Regina Evans.
The Kitchen Sisters’ work centers on little-known or under-documented aspects of the nation’s and the world’s cultural heritage and history – stories of people whose voices are seldom heard in the media. This project will be featured on its Webby Award winning podcast and highlighted by its network – PRX’s Radiotopia – which collectively has more than 11 million downloads per month. The stories will be promoted and distributed to public radio stations throughout the nation.
Photo of Sitalbanat Muiktari, When Dreams are Reality Installation, by Paige Ricks