Manifesting Access

The Idriss Stelley Foundation & Qcc present
Manifesting Access
June 1
AAACC, 7:30pm
Lisa Ganser

$10-20 sliding scale, NOTA
BPT Tickets: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/2550348

Manifesting Access is an intentionally more accessible (captioned and audio described) collection of short movies that expose truths at the intersection of disability and police terror. From the Sins Invalid Statement Against Police Violence: “Disabled people who are Autistic, who are Deaf, who live with mental health impairments or cognitive impairments, epilepsy or movement disorders, are at highest risk of being assaulted by police, and that is deeply compounded when we are further marginalized by homelessness, transphobia, and white supremacy.”

This screening makes accessible the work of artists and activists including Janetta Johnson, Noémie Serfaty, Akiko Sampson, Kin Folkz, Lisa Ganser, Judy Hanks with Nazeem and Spencer Joles, Tali Jones, Colin Ashante, Leroy Moore & Emmitt Thrower, and Mario Farid. The showcase highlights the life’s work of La Mesha Irizarry, mother of Idriss Stelley, and her legacy of activism.

ARTISTS’ BIOGRAPHIES

Lisa Ganser is a white Disabled artist and activist from Minneapolis, recently gentrified out of San Francisco, now living in Olympia, WA. They are an established filmmaker, curator and People’s Investigator that strives for accessibility in all things, putting the crayons back in people’s hands. Ganser is a poverty scholar who writes for POOR Magazine and volunteers with the Idriss Stelley Foundation. They are part of a Fundraising Team for Sins Invalid, are active with Olympia Copwatch and uses the tool of sidewalk chalk to combat police terror. Ganser is a musician and singer and performs in the duo “saplings” with nomy lamm. Ganser identifies as genderqueer and aspires to be an Elder.  Ganser curated tonight’s screening.

 

Mesha Monge Irizarry is a disabled Queer Elder who immigrated to the US 40 years ago, and currently lives in the Bayview neighborhood of San Francisco. She has worked in program management positions in the areas of Domestic Violence, HIV and Special Education. In 2001 her only child, Idriss Stelley, a 23 year-old Black bipolar man, was killed by SFPD. Ever since, she has dedicated her life to providing direct services to families and friends of Loved Ones killed or disabled by law enforcement.

 

 

Janetta Johnson is an Afro-American Trans woman who was raised in Tampa, Florida. She is a healer through her work at the Transgender Gender Variant and Intersex (TGI) Justice Project and facilitator invested in decolonizing spaces. Since 2006, she has been organizing around the intersections of violence she and her trans and gender non-conforming communities of color face. She has been both politicized and mentored by Miss Major who has been deeply influential in her life, and she is honored to have accepted Miss Major’s former position as Executive Director of the TGI-Justice Project. The spiritual force that drives her to dismantle the violent systems that black trans people are subjected to and oppressed by is one that awakens her.

 

Colin Ashante is a mixed race, disabled gay, queer male of color living in Olympia after getting gentrified out of Portland, originally from Kansas City Missouri (not Kansas so dont get it twisted). He spends his life working at a drop-in center, volunteering on the Queer Rock Camp collective in Olympia, and does vocals for a rad covers band that explores black roots music and queer punk. He has been on the queer activism scene for a hot minute and has worked with some of the foremost direct action based organizations in the country, on local, state and national levels. He has also been a featured blogger on Soulforce and PDX Q Center’s websites, as well as featured in the Bash Back zine. On a Friday night you can find him laying in bed with his dog, in the pit at a show, or praising the goddess on the dance floor.

 

Judy Hanks is an activist, organizer, and photographer who worked in the mental health field with SPMI clients in Minnesota for 18 years.  With a passion for equal rights, justice, love & peace, Judy currently resides in Dallas, Texas where she is a certified community health worker, spending time writing and mingling in the community.  She has produced thousands of photographs of events, performances and everyday life and three short videos.  Her music collection can be found on soundcloud, at JudyHanks, featuring NAZEEM, a young talented activist rapper from Minneapolis, for whom she is on the management team.  Judy is a visionary with dreams of a better reality for all.

 

Nazeem & Spencer Joles have made a firm impact upon the Minneapolis music community with their release of contagiously catchy singles and a dominant yet approachable stage presence. Raised in the south side, this unlikely duo have captivated the hearts of many by painting socially relevant commentary over the audible landscape of mainstream textures. Drawing influences from the likes of Kanye West, Ghostface Killah, Gil Scott Heron, Kendrick Lamar, and Amy Winehouse, their sound encapsulates a wide variety of genres.

 

Emmitt H. Thrower is a Disabled retired NYC Police Officer, Actor, Filmmaker and activist living in the Bronx NY. He produced the award winning documentary on police brutality against people with disabilities entitled “Where is Hope:The Art of Murder”. He is the 2016 winner of the B.R.I.O award that recognizes Bronx artists for their quality work as artists and in his case as filmmaker. He teaches a movie making program at a Senior’s Center in the Bronx. Emmitt contributed to a chapter in the book Occupying Disability: Critical Approaches to Community, Justice, and Decolonizing Disability with artists/activists Leroy Moore (founder of Krip Hop Nation) and Lisa “Tiny” Gray-Garcia (Co-Founder of Poor Magazine). He is the CEO and founder of the Bronx not-for-profit Wabi Sabi Productions Inc. His current project is a short film entitled “Pigs in a Bowl,” a comedy drama about “Millennials” living in an environment of terrorism and gentrification, to be completed in 2016.

 

Leroy F. Moore Jr. is a Black writer, poet, hip-hop/music lover, community activist and feminist with a physical disability. Leroy is Co-founder of the Sins Invalid performance project, as well as a contributing writer and performer.  He is the creator of Krip-Hop Nation (Hip-Hop artists with disabilities and other disabled musicians from around the world) and produced Krip-Hop Mixtape Series.  He is founding member and current Chair of the Black Disability Studies Working Group with the National Black Disability Coalition. Leroy is one of the leading voices around police brutality and wrongful incarceration of people with disabilities and co-produced the award winning documentary “Where is Hope:The Art of Murder.”  He wrote one of the first columns on race & disability in the early 90’s at Poor Magazine www.poormagazine.org, called “Illin-N-Chillin.”  In 2014, San Francisco Bayview Newspaper named Leroy “Champion of Disabled People in the Media” on Black Media Appreciation Night.  His book, The Black Kripple Delivers Poetry & Lyrics, was published by Poetic Matrix Press in the Winter of 2015.

Noémie Serfaty is a self-taught videographer and activist. She has been doing anti-oppression documentary filmmaking for the past 5 years. Her first documentary was shot in France, where she is from, and showed how the French Education System perpetuates colonialist views and social injustice. She is now doing media activism in solidarity with the struggle against police violence in the Bay Area. She volunteers for the Anti Police Terror Project and is interested in the ways that video as a medium can be used in liberating ways.

 

Akiko Sampson is a filmmaker and musician currently living in Oakland, CA. She divides her time between directing the queer horror/fantasy series “Flesh Trade,” making documentaries about polices violence and other social justice issues, and playing in the dark postpunk band Ötzi.