The concept of Black Girl Alchemy is a philosophy and programmatic approach originally presented by Black Women (specifically Dr. Nia Nunn, and Nydia Blas) from Southside Community Center, to describe an experience, of human beings creating and transforming through a seemingly magical process. The work of BGA recognizes that when the community prioritizes the voices and creative works of Black Girls & Women, everybody benefits. It is a curriculum of liberation designed to combat historical and current social conditions negatively impacting Black Girls & Women. While everyone gets to enjoy the beauty of the publicly displayed art and projects created, the empowerment process and education creates and honors a culture of sisterhood and innovation that fosters Black Girl liberation, in Ithaca, N.Y.
I’ve been working with Dr. Nunn and BGA since 2018. On Junteenth 2019, the large mosaic mural of Black Girl Alchemy self portraiture was unveiled. With the incredible impact of the first BGA public art mosaic, Dr. Nunn and I were already partnering with the Downtown Ithaca Children’s Center, on the next BGA mosaic, when a beloved teacher there, DeJour Gandy-Malone, was murdered, in December of 2019.
Summer 2020, we held an event called Drawing Black JOY, at Southside Community Park. Concentric circles of community celebrated the life of Dejour Gandy-Malone, a beloved teacher at the Children’s Center and cherished son, cousin, and born-and-raised member of the Ithaca community. The event was a design workshop, for a public art mosaic, celebrating the Black JOY Dejour embodied. Like far too many Black murders, Dejour’s tragic loss was followed by mistreatment of and disregard for his life —a dehumanizing response to his death by local police, medical personnel, and media; systemically de-valuing his life. The BGA experience is about deeply reflective representation, and reclaiming narratives that honor Black bodies, Black lives, and Black Joy.
We hosted clay tile making sessions at the Downtown Ithaca Children’s Center, where DeJour taught. Black Girl Alchemists, DeJour’s family, friends, and colleagues gathered to create handmade, original art in his honor. The chance to gather in person to make art was made even more needed and valuable because of the isolation and collective grief of the pandemic, and the death of George Floyd. Together we glazed the tiles, and mortared and grouted them into our design. The staff and teachers, at DICC, said that having the opportunity to express themselves creatively, about the joy of knowing DeJour, and the pain of loosing him, was cathartic for them and the preschoolers.
I collaborated with the childcare center to make a memorial garden that is accessible from the street, with plantings, seating, and the community made mosaic as its focal point. On October 23, 2021 we gathered to unveil our work of art.
