- damali ayo
-
damali ayo (born February 26, 1972) is a conceptual artist, author, comedian and performance artist. Her books use satire and humor to engage the reader in an examination of American culture. Her art ranges from assemblage, painting, installation, and solo and participatory performance. She also started a ground-breaking sliding-scale eco-clothing company. She prefers her name in lower case.
Contents
Background
Ayo was born in Washington, D.C. and attended Sidwell Friends School. She has a BA from Brown University with a double concentration in Public Policy and American Civilization. She holds a MFA from Portland State University in studio art.
Ayo often claims that her first performance was when she integrated her school's all-white doll collection at the age of 4.[1] While at Brown, ayo was the director of the Women In Prison Project. This community involvement project placed undergraduate women as theatre instructors in the Rhode Island women's correctional facility. Ayo was trained as a leadership and diversity facilitator as a young adult. She worked for the National Conference for Community and Justice, Rhode Island Branch, where she directed youth programs and workshops for adults on race relations. Ayo found traditional diversity work frustrating and slow to generate change. In 1997 Ayo created an art work about an experience she had in seventh grade with a particularly racist teacher.[2] She realized that, for her, art was the most effective way to encourage people to think about social issues. Her first solo gallery show followed shortly thereafter in 1999.
Conceptual Art
Ayo is classified as a conceptual artist because her work does not adhere to one medium, but rather puts the ideas first. She has used performance, painting, sculpture, collage, 3D installation, audio installation, video and web-based media. She also considers her writing a form of art.
One of ayo's most well known works is the web-art-performance rent-a-negro.com.[3] This satirical web site examines racism in the interactions between black and white people. The site employs parody and satire to engage the viewer in an artificial premise that one could rent a black person for their personal entertainment or to advance their social clout. This work, created in 2003 (the early days of internet art), received over 400,000 hits per day in its first month.
An excerpt from the site reads:
rent-a-negro.com is a state-of-the-arts service that allows you the chance to promote your connection with a creative, articulate, friendly, attractive, and pleasing African American person. This service comes without the commitment of learning about racism, challenging your own white privilege, or being labeled "radical." In fact, rent-a-negro.com allows you to use your money and status to your advantage! In addition, your dollars go to support the development of African American culture...everyone benefits![3]
damali also did a popular work where she visited several paint stores and asked to have a paint mixed to match various parts of her body. She recorded the experiences and created a public radio story for Studio 360 about it.[4]
Much of ayo's work is participatory or web-based. Ayo believes that, "Art should make you think and feel." She thinks that art should reach beyond gallery walls and eschews art that is merely for "decoration." [5] She believes that artists' true place is at the forefront of social change movements. To this end, ayo gives grants, to fund and grow artists making the kind of work she values.
Obamistan!
In 2010 damali released her second satirical book Obamistan! Land without Racism: Your Guide to the New America.[6] It is a humorous exploration of what a post-racism country really could look like, and what domino effect the end of racism would have on our country as a whole. It proposes that everything from pollution to political prisoners, to how we talk about food would change.
How to Rent a Negro
In 2005 ayo released How to Rent a Negro.[7] A satirical guidebook about race relations in the United States was published in 2005. How to Rent a Negro was granted a 2005 Honorable Mention in the Outstanding Book Awards from the Gustavus Meyers Center for the Study of Bigotry and Human Rights.[8] In 2006 How to Rent a Negro was purchased by Coalition Films to be made into a movie.[9]
Performance
Ayo has created work for the street and stage. An example of one of ayo's participatory performance projects is the 'National Day of Panhandling for Reparations'. This is based on performance work by damali ayo, living flag, where she sits on the street and panhandles for reparations. In this street performance, ayo collects reparations from passing white people and pays them out on the spot to passing black people. The National Day of Panhandling for Reparations annually involves people across the country to repeat ayo's performance in their communities.[10]
She was one of four co-founders of defunkt theatre, a consensus-based theatre company in Portland, Oregon. While with defunkt, she did acting, assistant directing, dramaturgy, and won two Drammy Awards for Outstanding Set Design [11]
Ayo's stage work now combines stand-up comedy, multimedia and stories about her life as a way to educate about racism.[12]
Radio
Damali ayo's work has been featured on several episodes of Studio 360,[13] a co-production of Public Radio International and WNYC New York Public Radio. Her radio work "Living Flag: Panhandling for Reparations" won a 2005 Silver Reel Award from the National Federation of Community Broadcasters.[14] She was a frequent guest commentator on NPR's Weekend America for their "Good News, Bad News, No News" segment.[15]
Eco Living and Eco Fashion
The July 2008 issue of Redbook Magazine [16] reported that after a string of terrible on-line dates, ayo redirected her energies to "eco fitting" her house. She maintains a list of eco-living tips on her website.[17] In November 2007 damali started CROW Clothing, an eco-friendly clothing company that also provided resources on health and social justice. The company closed in November 2008 during the economic downturn. Fashion, evolved, writes the following about damali ayo "Take one gorgeous woman. Add brains, a top-notch education, an enormous heart, and a sense of style--and what do you have? Damali Ayo. Damali is one of those people who is very quietly, very earnestly, and very effectively changing the world.".[18] damali also founded Black.Brown.Green. a web portal that links social justice and eco-issues. She continues to support the spread of eco-friendly fashion and green living.
References
- ^ Bitch Magazine Article
- ^ YouTube Clip about becoming an artist
- ^ a b rent-a-negro.com
- ^ Flesh-Tone
- ^ Colors of Influence Interview
- ^ Obamistan! Land without Racism: Your Guide to the New America
- ^ damali on the O'Reilly Factor
- ^ Gustavus Meyers Center Honorable Mentions Books 2005
- ^ Coalition Films
- ^ Wiretap Magazine article on National Day of Panhandling for Reparations
- ^ Drammy Awards
- ^ You Tube Clip Lecture
- ^ damali ayo's work on Studio 360
- ^ Federation of Community Broadcasters
- ^ Weekend America
- ^ Redbook Magazine profile on damali ayo
- ^ damali's eco-living tips
- ^ Fashion, Evolved. article on CROW Clothing
External links
Categories:- American performance artists
- American environmentalists
- American conceptual artists
- African American artists
- American satirists
- 1972 births
- Living people
- American women artists
- American stand-up comedians
- American non-fiction writers
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