Members of the Combahee River Collective at the March for Bellana Borde against Police Brutality | Photo Courtesy of Susan Fleischmann.

Combahee Conversations

Combahee Conversations 

Combahee Conversations is a series of FREE online dialogs organized by co-curators Arielle Gray, Cierra Peters, and Jen Mergel as part of the rolling citywide public art project Combahee’s Radical Call: Black Feminisms (re)Awaken Boston. To amplify the call-and-response nature of the commissioned art and to support values of tenderness and “sistering,” these Saturday afternoon coffee chats are offered as open and safe spaces to more deeply explore ideas shared by featured creatives and cultural innovators focused on Black Feminism(s). Selected speakers and themes will align with learnings available in the project’s related Virtual Reading Room. 

New programs will be regularly announced so please revisit this page to register for all of the season’s offerings:

Saturday, June 12, 3-4:30 p.m.

At The Waves’ Edges: A Cross-Generational Dialogue on Black Feminism: Part 1

Featuring: Demita Frazier

Saturday, March 20, 3-4:30 p.m.

These Magic Hands: Black Feminist Learnings On Land And Food Sustainability

Featuring: Nia Holley and Maria Pinto

Saturday February 27, 3-4:30 p.m.

Interphase: How the Black Feminist Archive Yields New Bodies of Creative Growth 

Featuring: Mithsuca Berry, Zoë Pulley, and Nakia Hill  

Combahee’s Radical Call is inspired by and developed in direct dialogue with Demita Frazier, co-founder of Boston’s Combahee River Collective, a group of Radical, Socialist, Black Feminists and Lesbians active in community organizing and publishing in Boston between 1974-80.  In that spirit, through June 2021, a broad range of Black Femme/Feminist artists will be commissioned to occupy public spaces with installations, design, and digital resources. Their works will serve to amplify the voices (and counter the erasure) of Black Femme cultural leaders across Boston’s neighborhoods. 

Generous Support:

Combahee’s Radical Call: Black Feminisms (re)Awaken Boston was made possible with funding by the New England Foundation for the Arts’ Public Art for Spatial Justice Program, with funding from The Barr Foundation. This project is also supported by grants from the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation and the Krupp Family Foundation funds to the Curatorial Network Accelerator of Boston.