Global Justice & Change Program Launch

Amai Kuda et Les Bois don’t fit into the usual boxes. Breaking boundaries is part of their superpower. Not a band or a solo act, they prefer to call themselves ‘a movement.’ Led by Amai Kuda, their shows and albums always begin with the pouring of libations and the invocation of ancestors. This spiritual element weaves its way throughout all their music, whether that be soothing acoustic ballads, dancy electronic grooves or alt-rock-hiphop-infused political tracks. For Amai Kuda et Les Bois, music is about healing – ourselves, our society and the earth, and that can’t happen unless we listen to the voices that have for too long been ignored. You can find their work at ynamai.com
 (external link) 

Janice Jo Lee, aka Sing Hey, is a contemporary folk artist of Korean settler ancestry. She is a folk-soul singer-songwriter, spoken word poet, actor, bouffon, playwright, and educator. Lee is an award-winning performer who creates looping landscapes with her voice, guitar, trumpet and Korean jangu drum. She is a hard femme queer radical. She says the truth and gets in trouble for it often, on stage and off. She is interested in using art to build flourishing communities based in justice and joy. Her work explores gender justice, antiracism, friendship, burnout, community, ancestry and the Earth. Find her on social media: @janjolee.

Dr. Vanessa Andreotti  (external link) is Canada Research Chair in Race, Inequalities and Global Change at the University of British Columbia and a founding member of the gesturing towards decolonial futures (GTDF) collective (external link) . Her latest book Hospicing Modernity: Facing Humanity’s Wrongs and the Implications for Social Activism (external link)  explores what it means to exist during times of great complexity and crisis produced by colonialism, capitalism, and supremacist ways of thinking and being. Her work challenges learners philosophically and metaphysically, guiding inward to explore how modernity’s assertions of what it is to be human shape and limit what is imaginable.

brontë’s work and rest is guided by the call that “black wellness is the antithesis to state violence” (Mark Anthony Johnson). as a black-latinx transdisciplinary artist, curator, trickster, educator and wakeworker, their eco-social art praxis lives at the intersections of black feminist placemaking, abolitionist theologies, environmental regeneration and death doulaship. 

they embody this commitment of attending to black health/imagination, commemorative justice (Free Egunfemi) and hospicing the shit that hurts black folks and the land through serving as creative director for Lead to Life (external link)  design collective and ecological educator for ancestral arts skills and nature-connection school Weaving Earth (external link) . they are currently co-conjuring a mockumentary with esperanza spalding in collaboration with the San Francisco Symphony and caring for/being cared for by land with their partner in unceded Kashia Pomo territory in northern California.

mostly, brontë is up to the sweet tender rhythm of quotidian black queer-lifemaking, ever-committed to humor & liberation, ever-marked by grief at the distance made between us and all of life —

Sumie Song (external link)  is Director of Global Education, Fulbright Scholar Liaison, and Associate Professor in the Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences at North Park University, where she oversees study abroad programs and support services for international students and scholars. Sumie received her Ph.D. from Duke University in German Studies and B.A. from Williams College in Comparative Literature. At North Park, she teaches courses on medieval literature and history, postcolonial literature, experimental education, and self-inquiry. Sumie helped establish the university’s Council for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, and has served as interim director of the Office of Diversity and Multicultural Programming. In 2018 she participated in a Fulbright International Education Administrators grant to India. She has presented on racial/ethnic and transnational identity; antiracism in international education; and student success-focused assessment and institutional planning. Before coming to North Park, she worked at a community-based grassroots organization in Chicago that organizes for equity in education, immigrant rights, health equity, affordable housing, youth investment, juvenile justice, and college access. In her free time Sumie likes to paint; she was a featured artist in Chicago Public Library’s AAPI Heritage Month Art Exhibit for her work on facial cosmetic surgery in South Korea.

Emma Wright (external link)  is a mother, collaborator, learner/unlearner, and avid mistake maker, who is deeply committed to centring responsibility, accountability, humility, joy, care and humour in our relationships to one another and all life. Her familial lineages are shaped by the privileges produced by white supremacy and the harms inflicted by patriarchy, ableism and other forms of supremacy. She strives to disrupt and repair personally, relationally and structurally. Emma is a settler based in Tkaronto. She is Manager of Global Learning and Engagement at X University (renaming in process), holds a Master Degree in Social Science in International Migration and Social Cohesion, and is the project lead for the GJC program.