“Strength, Creation, Love, and Transformation: Telling the African Goddesses“

with Vanessa Johnson

Thursday,  January 25, 2024 at 3 PM Eastern Time  

REGISTER HERE

 

“Women who speak for themselves have the authority to control their lives. By telling our stories, women talk themselves out of the world of silence and invisibility, and into the world of strength, creation, love, and transformation. Our voices center our existence in the eternal line of creation that the first African women birthed on this planet.  Telling the stories and legends of African Goddesses rejects patriarchy as the central power of spirituality and shifts traditional male bound forms of spiritual discourse. Remembering the voice of the African Goddesses is a transformative process which reclaims the African roots of our female existence.” Vanessa Johnson shares these powerful stories and legends of African Goddess of the Motherland and of the African Diaspora.

Vanessa Johnson is a Griot, a Storyteller in the West African Tradition.  She is a Writer, a Playwright, an Actor, a Fiber Artist, Museum Consultant, Community Activist, Historian, an Educator and Teaching Artist. In addition to many projects as a visual artist and activist, she has acted in numerous plays and has written, directed, and produced children’s plays; her own play “Doors” was produced in May 2014, by the Paul Robeson Performing Arts Company of Syracuse. She is the Founding Director of Syracuse Africa Bound, which provides youth from 12-18 years old the opportunity to explore African Cultures, and to take part in educational travel and service opportunities in Ghana West Africa. Vanessa is the Artist in Residence for the Matilda Joslyn Gage Foundation in Fayetteville, N.Y., and as a consultant, designed the museum’s Underground Railroad Room. She has served as the Gage Foundation Community Liaison for their Girl’s Ambassadors for Human Rights Program. She has been the Gage Ambassadors for Human Rights Program Director from 2016 to the present. She is the recipient of a Melon and Ford Foundation Creatives Rebuild NY Grant for 2022-2024.

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Save the date for this upcoming ASWM Salon:

Thursday February 8 at 3 PM Eastern Time

“Shepenwepet II Kushite God’s Wife of Amun”  with Dr. Solange Ashby

The Salon recording will also be available to members after the event.