On Kindred Creation and Black Futures

• Online Conversation. Register to Access the Livestream and One Week of Ad-Free Replay Access
• Books are available to add to your order at check-out for pick-up from Marcus Books in Oakland, California or delivery within the United States

Author, organizer, and designer Aida Mariam Davis’ work explores the historical and ongoing impacts of settler colonialism, making explicit the ways that extraction, oppression, and enslavement serve the goals of empire—not least by severing ancestral connections and disrupting profound and ancient relationships to self, nature, and community.  

Her book, Kindred Creation, is a call and response to dream and design better worlds rooted in African lifeways: a path to Black freedom, a love letter to Black futures, and a blueprint to intergenerational Black joy and dignity—all (and always) on Black terms. 

Join Aida and CIIS Director of the Center for Black & Indigenous Praxis Preston Vargas for a powerful conversation exploring African epistemologies and recalling the dignity and distinction of the African way of life. Aida shares her philosophical framework: remember, refuse, and reclaim as a vital guide for birthing new worlds and reclaiming land, language, lifestyle, and labor.
 
 

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Author, founder, and organizer Aida Mariam Davis is relentlessly committed to the dignity and distinction of the African and Black way of life. She is part of a long tradition of poets, philosophers, and prophets who participate in liberation movements in the United States and abroad. Specifically, she is a descendant of anticolonial fighters who kept Ethiopia free from colonialism when virtually all of Africa was colonized.

Her life’s work has been to excavate the historical and ongoing impacts of settler colonialism, making explicit the ways in which extraction, oppression, and enslavement serve the goals of empire—not least by severing ancestral connections and disrupting profound and ancient relationships to self, nature, and community. Mariam Davis is the founder of Decolonize Design and Kindred Creation is her first book.
 

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Preston Vargas, Ph.D., carries the blessings, wisdoms, and joys of his ancestors. He was born from the land of his grandmother's ancestral Wampanoag people. It is a place where his liberated Black ancestors found family and home with the local Indigenous communities. It is also the land where his mother's Cape Verdean immigrant ancestors cultivated cranberry bogs and blueberry bushes amidst deciduous forests. Though he lives on the Pacific coast, Preston honors his ancestors, the land-water spirits of Massachusetts who periodically draw him back home.

Preston holds a Ph.D. in Transformative Studies and an M.A. in Philosophy, Cosmology and Consciousness from CIIS. Preston Vargas has worked in community-based organizations with underserved communities for twenty years. Currently, he is the Director of the Center for Black & Indigenous Praxis at CIIS. His focus is on engaging Black and Indigenous folx as they reclaim their ancestral wisdom traditions, in present-day context, to heal their communities’ souls through oracular art and ceremonial collaborations with their ancestors, deities, and spirits of the Land. He enlivens his passions through his lived experiences as an Ifa practitioner, animistic healer, and reclaiming tradition community ritualist. Preston is a storyteller and oracular artist. He enjoys exploring how humans navigate through the lenses of their own experiences, engage their creative talents, and re-present these stories for healing and transformation. He weaves the gifts of his ancestral traditions and scholarship with a commitment to anti-oppression, Pleasure Activism, and his embodiment of Decolonial Love. 

We are grateful to our Bookstore Partner

Marcus Books is the nation’s oldest Black-owned independent bookstore celebrating its 60th year. Marcus Books’ mission is to provide opportunities for Black folks and their allies to celebrate and learn about Black people everywhere. Learn more about Marcus Books.

Accessibility

If you need to request accessibility accommodations, please email publicprograms@ciis.edu at least one week prior to the event. For more information, explore our Accessibility web page.

Important Event Information

Access to the livestream event is limited to registered guests. Registered ticket holders will receive the link to watch the livestream, will have access to chat and Q&A, and will have an ad-free watching experience.

Recording Policy

Ticket holders will have access to an ad-free replay of the event for one week after the live event. A replay with ads will be released on our YouTube channel one week after the livestream. Portions of the audio will also be released on our podcast. Only registered ticket holders who choose to watch live can participate in the chat and Q&A.

Refunding Policy

All tickets and donations for this event are nonrefundable.