LIA RUSSELL-SELF

LITERATURE | Western Massachusetts, 2020 - 2021

CULTURE HUB

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The Foundry was built in 1994 as a glass blowing studio and is now a venue for producing theater, music, comedy, spoken word, educational workshops and more, providing a safe place to create dangerous work: work that counteracts the passive, the isolating, the distance between people. It cultivates an environment for audiences to experience joyful creation, partake in brave exploration, meet the person sitting next to them. The Foundry’s goal is to present relevant performing and visual art that is accessible for diverse audiences; art that connects and inspires us, and incites us to leap across cultural boundaries. The Foundry is a holding tank for raw, funny, challenging, empowering work that changes the lens through which we view each other.

ARTIST

PHOTO COURTESY OF WAM

PHOTO COURTESY OF WAM

Lia Russell-Self (they/them/their) is a multifaceted weaver of stories, often grapping with juxtaposed theories and the unexpected. A quiet riot hailing from Stone Mountain, Georgia, their current work grapples with how identities, imposed and claimed, can spark the loud secrets we keep best hidden. Lia can often be found in the theatre in the hills that join Massachusetts and New York, whether performing on stage, creating brave spaces for oppressed peoples, or teaching young dreamers like themselves to do the same. Lia is affiliated with numerous small performance ensembles that stretch throughout New England, including WAM Theatre, Black Shakespeare Project, Eighty4 Productions, and the rig.

SOCIAL IMPACT INITIATIVE

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The Rusty Anvil is an educational organization reconnecting marginalized communities to their place within the natural world through mindful wilderness trips and place-based skills while serving as a platform for ancestral healing, community building, and cultural transformation. The program aims to build a supportive outdoor community that provides space for self-reflection and healing, intimacy with nature, and conscious environmental stewardship for people of color and LGBTQ+ individuals.

Lia Russell-Self is engaging with young, queer people of color in the Berkshires to create poetry, collaborative art and experiences that speak to spiritual, mental, and physical well-being in partnership with The Rusty Anvil. After offering natural immersion experiences and creative writing workshops for queer people of color in the first six-month period, Lia is now working to imagine what resource sharing and reparations can look like on a personal and community level.

Throughout the pilot, Lia will also continue to work on a narrative collection of poetry. An Epic of the Unspoken is a non-linear exploration of the sobering truth of adulthood as a millennial reimagining the unrealistic ideals installed in children. The work comes to terms with what this means at the intersection of identities while simultaneously navigating the jungle of technology, relationships, and politics. This is the antithesis of a romantic epic; it’s the antidote that creates reality.

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Ancestor Audre Lorde once offered us this: “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.” Rest is important in how we work to imagine a new world, but it is most crucial in how we nourish ourselves. Rest is needed EVERYDAY, but the question is how do we build it into our lives in meaningful, intentional ways. Let's start expanding that together. #reclaimmyliberation #sanctuarysundays #reclaimyourliberation ••• 1 (White background with turquoise, chartreuse, and plum brush strokes, two floating images (one of Lia in a black shirt and a tiger cat, Muir, laying down; the other of a river going through a rock pass), and text that reads "Sanctuary Sunday How do you rest?" 2 Turquoise background with white, plum, chartreuse, and burnt sienna brush strokes with text that reads "rest is a time of wild imaginings, quiet solace, loud thoughts, whatever you need it is key in unleashing your own power" 3 Turquoise background with navy, plum, and chartreuse brush strokes with text that reads "REST IS USUALLY SEEN AS THIS HUGE, HOURS-LONG ORDEAL. WE AIN'T ALL GOT TIME FOR THAT. it's more about what and how much intention you are willing to give to your rest" 4 Turquoise background with white brushed dots with text that reads "it can be as simple as an intentional breath " 5 Turquoise background with white, chartreuse, and burnt sienna brushed dots and text that reads "how I rest making my food pretty journaling meditating making coffee or a cup of tea napping writing small poems being with my cats singing (.esp. when it's off key) putting my hands into the earth breathing listening to a whole album all the way through remember: intention is key" 6 Turquoise background with white, plum, chartreuse, and burnt sienna brush strokes with text that reads "some other cool peeps dedicated to rest The Unplug Collective (@theunplugcollective ) Liberate (@liberatemeditation ) Healhaus (@healhaus The Nap Ministry (@thenapministry 7 White background with navy and plum brush strokes with text that reads "How are you resting today? Share a photo or a bit of poetry tag #reclaimmyliberation @reclaim_your_liberation"

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that storm was kicking up some wild blessings for me. I started thinking of the ancestors who used natural "disasters" to rebuild, reconnect, and refortify, who saw them as blessings and lessons. ****this does not negate the real destruction of primary resources that can be almost impossible to replace. this is an opening to expand our thinking of nature's communication and reassessing how we interact and listen to nature and all they offer us.**** ••• 1. solid black background with white script that says: "the storm may have passed... the power may still be out... the trees may still be down... you might still not be okay... but what blessings did nature leave in its wake?" 2. Black background with transparent, corral scribbles and white script that reads: " every natural occurrence reminds us of what we've neglected and asks us to focus on the land & its rhythms things may not be okay right now there may be grieving you need [in chartreuse script] grieve 3. solid black background with slightly broken font that reads: "HONOR YOURSELF" 4. Black background with transparent, corral scribbles and script that reads: "[in chartreuse] and also see what has been illuminated for you [in white]storms are gifts to anchor us and the blessings they leave often go unmeasured because it destroys the materials which have and often will outweigh nature in this society 5. Black background with transparent, coral scribbles and script that reads: "[in white] but I invite you to break that cycle [in chartreuse] what blessings did this storm illuminate for you? 6. Black background with translucent, coral scribbles and script that reads: "[in white] this may be difficult and that's fine! we are channeling through deep ancestral waters for this lost information. here are some places you can start: [in chartreuse, slightly broken font] who were you able to find comfort with? what did you find in this disruption of schedule? what are you thankful you still have? is the land renourished near you? did you find beauty* in this storm? did you look out for you and the ones you love? #reclaimyourliberation #reclaimmyliberation #reconnectwithnature

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The seasons are changing again, and time seems to be a theme of my relationship with autumn. I'm often confronted with shifting my schedule to encompass the change of light, temperature, and harvest. I notice myself wanting to fit a winter's span of outdoors into this golden fullness of the earth. However, the way I've been conditioned to quantify time has never allowed me to gorge on nature. This year, instead of yelling once again at the little rectangles on my Google Calendar, I've been exploring new ways to relate to time. What is a an hour? A day? A week? Does a Monday have to mean dread? Does a Friday have to mean partying? These are probably already questions coming up in the middle of a pandemic where everything seems to be chucked out a window, but maybe this is a good to move a question to a system or action. Maybe this is your first time giving space to a question like this. The revolution calls for a drastic reshaping of our basic understandings and our foundational relationships. Time is a relationship that, as a society, we need to reassess and realign. Just a little thought for a big change ✨ 1. soft pink background with scraps of burlap, printed paper, and tape. brush strokes with a photo of reddening leaves peeking through. "time" in white, with green shadows, written on top of it all. 2. top half is a soft pink banned with strong text in cream and green that says: "TIME HOLDS OUR STORIES, OUR MEMORIES, OUR LIFE. BUT ARE YOU LETTING IT?". bottom half is soft folds of linen. 3. top third of page is an upside pictures of a swamp coming into the fiery hues of fall. bottom half, in cream handwritten font, says: "every fall, I am reminded how time continues to move on, no matter how much I try to quantify or control it." 4. soft pink background with triangles at top center (in turquoise) and bottom center (in deep plum) with strong text in cream over it that says: "especially now it's hard to let go "what if" buzzes around in emails in dms in time of rona in life of upheaval" 5. soft pink background with transparent turquoise and lime swirls and lines with gentle, cream handwritten text that says " how can you let time hold you?"

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