Oddside Arts goes Beyond the Soil
Oddside Arts is a cultural arts not-for-profit and creative technology artist collective with a mandate to merge art, technology and wellness through Black speculative design. As members of the DFZ’s Experimental Track, artists Nico Taylor and Queen Kukoyi use art and digital fabrication as a tool and a point of access for critical discussions on accessibility, equity and coalition building.
This June Oddside Arts (external link) collaborated with Doctors Without Borders (external link) /Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) at Luminato (external link) in the Square 2024 to present a new exploration of their interactive art experience "Beyond the Soil." This experience, ahead of World Refugee Day, aimed to raise awareness of global forced displacement by engaging participants to use graphic patterns and messages as a means of expressing solidarity with people facing forced displacement worldwide.
Drawing from quilting practices of the African diaspora, "Beyond the Soil'' employs experimental laser-cutting techniques and surface printing on plywood and acrylic, inviting participants to contribute their stories and symbols of solidarity during a one-day workshop event. Following a collaborative art-making model, Oddside Arts invited the community to contribute to a collective memory of resilience and survival by drawing with markers on vibrant acrylic pieces which were then integrated into the installation. The project culminated in an impressive 8-foot-tall by 12-foot-wide interactive installation that weaved together personal narratives of resilience.
"The originating themes of the Beyond the Soil project align with the mission of Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) because of how it explores the way that we, as people, are a compilation of moments that shape us, and for some of us those moments are marked by movement, adaptation and shifting soil. For us and other Afrodiasporic communities, especially those who live in North America, familial lineage is a continual process of discovery. Thus, Beyond the Soil elaborates on how we have made homes for ourselves amid mass displacement and where those stories connect with others."
Oddside Arts is a grassroots cultural arts not-for-profit and creative technology artist collective, merging art, technology and wellness through Black speculative design. The organization uses art as a point of access for critical discussions about accessibility, equity, coalition building, and demystifying the public art process for a cultural community of artists to gain access. This is done by working from a lens that prioritizes mental wellness and reimagines spaces for those who identify as part of Afrodiasporic and Indigenous communities, most especially women, gender-expansive and LGTBQ+ folks, to theorize, create, and contribute to the development of the equitable future.
To learn more about Oddside Arts and their ongoing projects, visit their website (external link) or follow them on Instagram (external link) .
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