Mother Voices: Transformative Intergenerational Journey

Mother Voices: Transformative Intergenerational Journey, A Conversation with Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Rachel Harding, and Toshi Reagon

Learn more and register for the event here.

This program is free and open to all.

PLEASE NOTE: Visitors to Bowdoin College should either be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 or wear a mask when inside campus buildings.

Three groundbreaking creatives—Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Rachel Harding, and Toshi Reagon—will fuse their wisdom, spirit, and minds as they discuss the beauty and power of intergenerational learning and teaching. Learn more and register for the event here.

Alexis Pauline Gumbs is an award-winning poet/author who is cherished by a wide range of communities as an oracle and a vessel of love. One of the great joys of Gumbs’s life is collaborating on Long Water Song with Toshi Reagon, a series of healing transformative marine mammal meditations.

Rachel Elizabeth Harding is a poet, historian, and scholar of religions of the Afro-Atlantic diaspora and chair of the Ethnic Studies Department at the University of Colorado–Denver. She writes about religion, creativity, and social justice in the experience of communities of African descent in the US and Brazil. Dr. Harding is an ebômi (ritual elder) in the Terreiro do Cobre Candomblé community in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil.

Toshi Reagon is the 2022-2023 Joseph McKeen Visiting Fellow at Bowdoin College, where she brings her Parable Path work to Brunswick and the wider Maine community. She has been named Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Creative Futures Artist-in-Residence with the Carolina Performing Arts organization. Other recent projects include her involvement in the Met Civic Practice Partnership, and Parable Path artist residencies.

This event is a part of Parable Path Maine, a framework Toshi Reagan is bringing to Bowdoin during the course of her fellowship that is based on Octavia E. Butler’s Parable of the Sower. Through a decades-long career, and most recently through national and international Parable Path collaborations, Reagon has brought people together to name precarities, expand networks, and craft solutions to create a framework for community organizing through artistic engagement. 

For the Parable Path Maine initiative, the McKeen Center for the Common Good at Bowdoin College is working alongside Portland-based Indigo Arts Alliance, which supports Maine-based Black and brown artists and activists, and the Maine Humanities Council, whose focus on Afrofuturism for the next two years brings the work of Butler to libraries, correctional facilities, and community organizations across the state. The fellowship culminates with a performance of Toshi and Bernice Reagon’s congregational opera adaptation of Parable of the Sower. This one-night-only event will be presented by Indigo Arts Alliance and Portland Ovations in association with the College, and will be performed at Merrill Auditorium in Portland, Maine, on April 14, 2023. Click here to purchase tickets and learn more.

OTHER PARABLE PATH EVENTS

Information about other upcoming events is available on the Parable Path Maine website.

ABOUT THE PARTNER ORGANIZATIONS

Bowdoin College

Bowdoin College has been educating leaders on the coast of Maine since the dawn of the American republic. Founded in 1794, Bowdoin is a highly selective college of approximately 1,850 students of distinction from across America and around the world. Bowdoin offers Bachelor of Arts degrees in more than 40 majors, including interdisciplinary programs. A Bowdoin liberal arts education and residential life experience instill principled leadership, lifelong learning, and service to the common good. Visit Bowdoin College online at Bowdoin.edu and follow the college on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Indigo Arts Alliance (IAA) is a Black-led organization dedicated to the professional development and amplification of Black and Brown artistic vision and practice. Founded in 2018 and formally launched in 2019, IAA is an incubator space with a mission to build global connections by bringing together Black and Brown artists from diverse backgrounds to engage in creative processes through an Artists in Residency program. Visit indigoartsalliance.me to learn more and support their work.

The Maine Humanities Council (MHC), a statewide non-profit organization, uses books, poetry, and big ideas to bring people together to discuss issues of importance and create positive change in Maine communities. Their programs and grants encourage critical thinking and conversations across social, economic, and cultural boundaries. The MHC is a state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and is the home of Maine’s Center for the Book through the Library of Congress. Visit their website at mainehumanities.org or follow them on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter to learn more about MHC’s programming and how to support their work.