SUNLIGHT AROUND THE CORNER

Sunlight Around the Corner was initiated to challenge the narratives, patterns and systems that impact social factors around health - education, housing, employment, access to equitable education and health disparities. 

During a community-engagement process, beginning at the inception of the project, narrators’ voiced their ideas on project approaches, as well as the themes they were most interested in amplifying from their collection of stories.  

As circumstances evolved over time (most notably a global pandemic from COVID-19) opportunities to re-imagine elements became available. This included expanding collaborations with partners locally, nationally and internationally, and amplifying these stories with multidisciplinary approaches in the arts, public health and mapping.   

The narrators hope to professionalize their work, and humanize the work of these community advocates, and the community members that they support. The stories seek to build awareness and sensitize audiences to the realities and the structural barriers that they and their communities face. The painful truth of all of these stories is that these inequities are vestiges of chattel slavery  which existed in the U.S. and globally, and still exists in many parts of the world.  

The power of communal stories is being amplified through the narrators, who engaged in over 25 hours of oral history interviews, focused on their life histories. Sharing these stories not only serve as an invitation to dialogue and authentic relationship building, but are modalities for personal healing and recognizing and reflecting on one’s own transformational journey. 

Finally, the projects, individually and collectively, serve as a source of African Diasporic connection.  It can help us remember and engage in rituals that serve to fortify, inspire and heal; and to continue the task of re-connecting to the African continent, which was violently disrupted and broken.  

Enslaved African ancestors in the U.S. were forbidden to speak their languages, practice their cultures,  customs or spirituality. They are being remembered and shared as a part of this multimedia project.