The Artists
Monica
Simpson
Executive Director
SisterSong
Monica Raye Simpson is an Artivist that organizes for liberation and sings truth to power. She is a cultural curator and strategist that purposes to create transformative spaces and experiences whether through her music, productions or in her work as the Executive Director of SisterSong the National Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective. She’s produced events at national progressive conferences such as Facing Race and Netroots Nation as well as globally with Creating Resources for Empowerment in Action (CREA) and Women Now. With deep roots in gospel music and classical training coupled with her love for soul and movement music, Monica Raye has created her own lane as a Revolutionary Soul Singer. She released her first live album entitled, “Revolutionary Love” in 2015 and she has performed in various theatrical productions including, For the Love of Harlem, Words the Isms, Walk Like a Man, The Vagina Monologues and For Colored Girls. Monica Raye’s commitment is to live into Nina Simone’s charge to artists – “to always reflect the times.”
Seyi Adebanjo
AURJ Coordinator
SisterSong
Seyi Adebanjo is a Queer Gender-Non-Conforming Nigerian artist, healer and facilitator. Seyi has over 20 years’ experience working with communities of Color, Queer/LGBTQ community, youth, womxn, immigrants, non-profits on healing justice, culture shift, and institutional health/spirit. Seyi’s art raises awareness around social issues through multi-media video. Seyi's work exists at the intersection of art, imagination, ritual and politics. Seyi is serving on Creatives Rebuild New York (CRNY) Think Tank -artist grant programs. Seyi was recently awarded a residency with The Laundromat Project, Fatales Forward: Trans Stories Fellowship, NYSCA Individual Artist Grant, received the BRIO Award and 1 of the 8 Exciting Filmmakers Shaking Up Hollywood by IndieWire. Seyi was nominated for the 2020 Art Matters Fellowship.
Tabia
Lisenbee
-Parker
tabia (she/they) is a both a lightwriter and a lightworker who began making pictures as a student street photographer with the Philadelphia Inquirer in ‘97. Growing up, they spent summers in Alabama catching lightning bugs and snapping beans with her grandmother. Their relationship to the South, and to storytelling, deepened while attending Spelman College in Atlanta, and yet again upon launching a career in communications strategy for social enterprises and non-profits. 20+ years of documenting makers, cultivators, and community has given tabia the chance to connect with power-shifters and design creative solutions across the spectrum of social justice. Continuing her journey as a life-learner, they’ve spent the last few years immersed in the principles of land-based liberation and ancestral practice -- learning and listening closely to the stories of Black agrarians and Indigenous communities around the world. Between loving on plants, story gathering, and adventure-seeking, tabia teaches photography to middle and high school students through her youth outreach program, The Capture Project. Although centered on technique, the program works to foster creative expression, encourage social responsibility, and preserve Black oral tradition.