ARTIST COLLECTIVE
The Cedar Cultural Center is pleased to announce the six members of its second-annual Artist Collective, a group of innovative local Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) artists working to expand access to the arts, diversify programming, and vision organizational processes at The Cedar. The 2020 Artist Collective cohort consists of Deeq Abdi, Ifrah Mansour, Ritika Ganguly, Tou Saiko Lee, Alexandra Buffalohead, and Lady Midnight.
Launched in 2019 with funding from the Minnesota State Arts Board and Headwaters Foundation, the Artist Collective is the first-ever multicultural, multi-genre music collective in the organization’s 31-year history. Artist Collective members meet bi-monthly with The Cedar’s Executive Director David Hamilton and other leadership staff to shape creative methods of engagement, participate in deep conversations, give feedback on Cedar processes, and ultimately influence internal systems and ‘business as usual’ practices.
Meet the Members of The Cedar’s 2020 Artist Collective:
Deeq Abdi
Deeq Abdi was born in Somalia, the nation of poets, after the outbreak of the civil war. Abdi started using poetry as a form of expression from a young age, when he learned the finer points of Gabay; an ancient form of Somali poetry from family. After moving to the United States in 1998, Deeq embraced other forms of expression, including spoken word poetry and hip hop. Living in Minneapolis with a Somali mother and Irish American father gives unique perspective on creating art and culture.
IFRAH MANSOUR
Ifrah Mansour is a Somali, refugee, Muslim, multimedia artist and an educator based in Minnesota. Her artwork explores trauma through the eyes of children to uncover the resiliencies of blacks, Muslims, and refugees. She interweaves poetry, puppetry, films, and installations. She's been featured in BBC, Vice, Okayafrica, Star Tribune, and City Pages. Her critically-acclaimed, “How to Have Fun in a Civil War” premiered at Guthrie Theatre and toured to greater cities in Minnesota. Her first national museum exhibition; “Can I Touch It” premiered at Minneapolis Institute of Arts. Her visual poem, “I am a Refugee” is part of PBS’s short Film festival. "My Aqal, Banned and Blessed" premiered at Queens Museum in New York. Learn More: www.facebook.com/ifrahmansourart
TOU SAIKO LEE
Tou SaiKo Lee is a spoken word poet, storyteller, hip hop recording artist and community organizer from St. Paul, Minnesota. He collaborated with his late grandmother, Youa Chang or Zuag Tsab who does the traditional art of kwv txhiaj (Hmong Poetry Chanting) to form the duo "Fresh Traditions." Lee is developing inter-generational and world-wide creative resources for cultural identity through storytelling, multimedia and language learning with songs. Lee is releasing a memoir about their collaboration with his grandma to honor her passing titled My Grandma can Freestyle. He is releasing his first Hmong language Hip Hop album titled Ntiaj Teb Koom Tes which translates to Unified Worldwide in 2020.
ALEXANDRA BUFFALOHEAD
Alexandra Buffalohead is the Arts and Cultural Engagement Manager at the Native American Community Development Institute and All My Relations Arts Gallery in Minneapolis, MN. Buffalohead is a 2019 Emerging Curator Institute Fellow and has curated exhibitions at High Point Center for Printmakers in Minneapolis, and Artistry's Inez Greenberg Gallery in Bloomington. Buffalohead earned a BA from Augsburg University, an AS from the Art Institute International of Minnesota, and an MA from the University of Saint Thomas. She has been a keyboard player and vocalist in the MN-based band Bluedog since 2006. Their music is influenced by the life experiences of First Nations people.
LADY MIDNIGHT
Lady Midnight, she is an experience. She is an ethereal vocalist and performance artist who draws upon her multidisciplinary background in visual art, dance and Afro-indigenous roots to create work that timelessly reflects our collective lives. Lady Midnight was named Best Twin Cities Vocalist of 2017 by The City Pages and released her highly anticipated debut album Death Before Mourning in 2019. As Lady Midnight, she has recorded with international touring artists Bon Iver, P.O.S., Brother Ali, as well as performed with internationally acclaimed icons Common, Moby, Andra Day, and Aloe Blacc, among others. Lady Midnight has dedicated her life to using the arts as a power for change and confronting trauma.
RITIKA GANGULY
Ritika Ganguly, PhD., is a Minneapolis-based singer, composer, performance artist, and anthropologist, born and raised in New Delhi, India. She applies anthropological insights to practical problem-solving in the areas of equity in the arts and cross-cultural medicine. Her consulting practice and artistic practice both strive for an equality based on difference, rather than on the similarity of things, people, and knowledges. Ritika was commissioned as a composer by The Cedar Cultural Center in 2016, received the Jerome-supported Naked Stages award in 2017, and an MRAC Next Step award in 2018 for her research and new musical work in Baul (Bengali Sufi music/poetry). She has trained in multiple genres within Bengali music and in contemporary Indian theater. Her compositions bring disparate musical styles, literatures, and disciplines together. Learn more about her 2019 curated showcase here: https://www.thecedar.org/listing-2/oddmeasures
About The Cedar’s 2019 Artist Collective:
The inaugural 2019 Artist Collective cohort (Ritika Ganguly, Greg Grease, Harbi, Ifrah Mansour, Julian Manzara, and Dameun Maurice Strange) worked on “focus projects,” in which they curated a concert or series aimed at engaging specific cultural groups and musical forms. Over the course of these projects, The Artist Collective worked with over 180 diverse artists from across the metro region for events like Somali Traditional Night, a celebration of traditional Somali dance, music, and poetry; Lineage Black Music Series, a monthly session highlighting the breadth of Black music and musicians in the Twin Cities; Odd Measures Even-Ing, an auditioned showcase of odd metered music from around the world; My Aqal Stage, a pop-up stage in the form of an Aqal, a traditional Somali nomadic house, that brought performances to The Cedar’s plaza; Uni Arts St. Paul, a showcase that brought together artists from the Saint Paul neighborhoods of Frogtown and Rondo; and many more. Artist Collective programming reached over 1,500 audience members.
From L to R: Julian Manzara, Ritika Ganguly, Harbi, Greg Grease, Ifrah Mansour, and Dameun Strange
THE ARTIST COLLECTIVE IS SUPPORTED BY:
This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.