{"id":25664,"date":"2018-02-15T13:26:55","date_gmt":"2018-02-15T13:26:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artzealous.com\/?p=25664"},"modified":"2020-06-30T15:17:36","modified_gmt":"2020-06-30T15:17:36","slug":"artpowerwomen-series-meet-performance-artist-taja-lindley","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artzealous.com\/artpowerwomen-series-meet-performance-artist-taja-lindley\/","title":{"rendered":"#ArtPowerWomen Series: Meet Performance Artist Taja Lindley"},"content":{"rendered":"
Introducing our newest monthly series, #ArtPowerWomen! The goal of this series is to increase the visibility of important, unrepresented women artists. To do this, Art Zealous has teamed up in a pro bono collaboration with Curatious<\/a> and GirlSeesArt<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n We are kicking off this series with the formidable Taja Lindley. You might recognize her work from Spring\/Break<\/a>,\u00a0Brooklyn Museum’s Target First Saturdays<\/a>, and Fair<\/a>. We sat down with Lindley to discuss her socially engaged artwork, healing practices, and the one year anniversary of\u00a0the release of This Ain’t A Eulogy: A Ritual for Re-Membering<\/em><\/a> film.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n To be considered for the series, post your work with #artpowerwomen.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Art Zealous: Hometown?<\/strong> <\/p>\n AZ: Drink of choice?<\/strong> <\/p>\n AZ: Zodiac sign?<\/strong> <\/p>\n AZ: Talk to us about growing up in the South.<\/strong> <\/p>\n AZ: You studied at New York University\u2019s Gallatin School of Individualized Study where you essentially created your own major concentrating in public policy with a focus on health and women of color. How has it affected your view of the world and your art practice?<\/strong> <\/p>\n Being embedded in social movements has served as an important foundation for my creative practices and projects. Art can be moving, transformative, and enlightening \u2013 shifting how people understand themselves and an issue. As an artist, I\u2019m concerned with how my work can push us closer to freedom, liberation, and emancipation. How can we use artmaking as a participatory policymaking process? How can creative practices support and sustain movement-building efforts? What interventions can artwork make in policies and cultural practices? These are questions I am grappling with as I create and share my work.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n AZ: Burlesque has played a huge role in informing your practice, can you talk to us about how you first discovered the world of burlesque?<\/strong> <\/p>\n As a Black woman, my body, my sexual expression, and my decision-making are constantly up for public discussion and consumption. In this course, we had an opportunity to center our pleasure, our joy, our subjectivity (as opposed to being objectified) and create a performance that celebrated the reclamation of our bodies and our sexuality. It was a sacred space that allowed me to do a deep dive into my sensuality and creative practice. My graduation performance was entitled \u201cMiss Black America\u201d and explored how misogynoir<\/a> and respectability politics impact Black women\u2019s relationships to our bodies and ourselves.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
\nTaja Lindley:<\/strong> I was born in New York and raised in the south \u2013 metro Atlanta, Georgia to be exact. I\u2019ve spent most of my life in NYC and claim it as my hometown.<\/p>\n
\nTL:<\/strong> Bourbon in the winter. Tequila in the summer. Rum year round.<\/p>\n
\nTL:<\/strong> Cancer<\/p>\n
\nTL<\/strong>: As a young, outspoken and opinionated young Black woman, growing up in metro Atlanta was challenging. I experienced interpersonal and institutional racism inside of the public school system, especially concerning the use and reverence of the Confederate flag. In my predominately white high school, I became known as \u201cmilitant\u201d because I was consistently vocal about the subtle and overt ways in which racism was showing up: from students wearing confederate flag t-shirts depicting scenes of enslavement; to my psychology teacher teaching that IQ differed by race genetically (with Black people having the lowest IQ). While I spent a lot of time feeling pissed off, it was the fertile soil for my activism and my desire to create lasting social change.<\/p>\n
\nTL:<\/strong> Coming out of my experiences in metro Atlanta, I was committed to focusing on human rights, social change, and systemic inequality. My studies and my jobs right after college were focused on ensuring that policymaking processes were more inclusive of the communities that they were impacting.<\/p>\n
\nTL<\/strong>: Some folks in my community had participated in the Brown Girls Burlesque\u2019s Broad Squad Institute<\/a> (BSI) and suggested that I take their course. In the summer of 2013, I enrolled in BSI and spent six weeks coming up with a stage name, learning the art of striptease, and developing an act for our \u201cgraduation\u201d performance. It was important that I learn about the art and history of burlesque in a women of color space because we were able to center ourselves, rather than center the gaze that comes with being in this body.<\/p>\n