ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF THANKS

The central heart of this work is about people, and making community while honoring the human impact of how we live and work together. This acknowledgement is by no means exhaustive in the number of people who, in direct or indirect ways served this work with empathy, energy, compassion, and belief in its scale of intervention and rigor. This has not been an easy work or an easy journey. It cannot be said enough that it would have been impossible to properly honor these city legacies in this work, without naming those who served it or for whom it serves. I am overwhelmed with gratitude to every artist, collaborating organizer, and partner for their bravery, commitment, generosity and integrity – each central to the aims of UN-[TITLED]. Immense gratitude also for every friend, family member, colleague, and acquaintance who touched this work in the two years it took to make it.  As a decolonial effort of community honoring it feels like big family-making with many people, and so those named or innocently unnamed are to me a part of the UN-[TITLED] peoples.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ctd…

HUGE shout out to Elisheba Johnson and Inye Wokoma, two of the four co-founders of Wa Na Wari, Teme Wokoma of Sankofa Theater, and Tara Tamaribuchi of Friends of INScape for giving this project and its performances physical homes in the Central and Chinatown Int’l Districts.  The generosity and hospitable hold of your spaces was central to our efforts and will forever remain invaluable.

Oral History series participants who gave their personal stories to this work and continue to strive for legacy keeping in their neighborhoods – it is your lives and work that are central to this effort.

Thank you:

Maisha Barnett, TraeAnna Holiday, Ruby Holland, C. Davida Ingram, Gloria Jackson-Nefertiti, Maria Kang, Brandi Li, Karen Akada Sakata, Jazmyn Scott, Stacy Torres, Laurie Wilson, and JM Wong.  To be continued!

Contributors to the process:

Jill Freidberg, co-founder of Wa Na Wari, for advisory support on the UN-[TITLED] Oral History series; Jasmine Mahmoud, for thought-partnership and project advocacy; Justin Lynch, for being a sound board in the conceptual process and ideation of the project, and artist connections with Tom at Third Rail Projects; Rachel Cook, as the Curatorial Fellowship creator, for development thought-partnership, grant research + writing support, funding advocacy, artist connections; Kristina Newman-Scott, former President of BRIC who committed the institution to the future iterations as co-commissioner of UN-[TITLED] in New York for 2024/25;  

Whitney Lewis, for thought-partnership and brokering community connections to Diversity Roundtable and National Organization of Minority Architects (DRT-NOMA);  Dakota Camacho, for fellow artist uplift, witnessing and support in community.

Shout out to the four jurors of the inaugural On the Boards Curatorial Fellowship Open Call – Tara Aisha Willis, Eli Steffen, Edgar Miramontes, and Anna Gallagher-Ross, for selecting my project for development, for seeing its potential, embracing its inherent risk and rigor that is now made real. 

Jack Straw Cultural Center and National Performance Network Grant peoples:

Levi Fuller, Daniel Guenther, Ayesha Ubayatilaka, and Tom Stiles for such care in organizing and editing for the Oral History series and recording sessions for Benjamin Hunter’s music at Jack Straw Cultural Center.

Stanlyn Brevé, Alec De León, and Sara Carminati for holding accessible and supportive space as we navigated securing commission support for our project development.

Third Rail Projects & i.ma.gine e.volve support for Tom Pearson’s work and project development assistance:

Edward Rice (Assoc. Managing Director, Third Rail Projects) for grant writing support and production development assistance, Marissa Nielsen-Pincus (Assoc. Artistic Director, Third Rail Projects) for company management and rehearsal coordination, Zach Morris (co-Artistic Dir, Third Rail Projects), Jennine Willet (co-Artistic Dir, Third Rail Projects); Arielle Simmons (Intern for Project Development, i.ma.gine | e.volve), for grant writing assistance and family meal planning; and Em Chan (Admin + Research Assistant, Communications Liaison, i•ma•gine | e•volve) – impossible to conceive the past 3 months without your fastidiousness and care in supporting all internal communications and curatorial needs of the project.

Friends and family and colleagues for moral support, energy, community-connections and thought-partnership:

Dale Woodard, Margarette May Macaulay, Thea Quiray Tagle, Ebony G. Patterson, Emily Zimmerman, Christopher Day, Savita Krishnamoorthy, David Strand, Mark S. Pergola, Vernice Miller, Vivian Phillips, C. Davida Ingram, Naomi Macalalad Bragin, Satpreet Kahlon, Kimberly Corinne Deriana, Eric Gerard Parsons, Mateo B. Ochoa, Nina Bozicnik, Davora Lindner, Jeffrey Frace , Adrienne Mackey, Tyler Engle.

Thank you to the On the Boards staff here now and gone before, for presenting this project to the best and fullest of your capabilities and through the challenges, trusting in the demands to do a socially engaged immersive work:

Alyssa Yeoman, Clare Hatlo, Yashar Shayan, Nabilah Ahmed, Alex Harding, Sami Detzer, Catherine Nueva España, Ellen McGirvan. And to all the On the Boards tech, production, marketing peoples now – thank you for your hard work and resilience in taking up the baton and racing us all across the finish line!