Round I Projects
PROJECT
Big Dream Energy: Utilizing Radical Imagination as an Intervention for Social Justice
PROJECT FOCUS AREA:
Social justice and community engagement
ZIP CODE(S):
CONTRIBUTOR(S):
Kelsey Daniels
The Big Dream Energy: Utilizing Radical Imagination as an Intervention for Social Justice campaign objective is to promote dreamwork as a transformative practice to address social issues, foster community building, and generate transformative art. The core of this campaign revolves around a series of three "dream tanks," unique activations designed to support generative dialogue, artistic expression, and community building in third spaces, which are locations distinct from people’s homes and workplaces. These spaces offer a neutral ground where people can connect comfortably. Each dream tank will include setting community norms, ancestral wellness grounding, collective brainstorming on social justice issues, generative art-making, mutual aid premier, and sharing. The campaign culminates in a one-person show, Daniels’s present, exploring themes similar to those in the dream tank, followed by a community talkback. The event will also feature vendors and community resource tables.
LEARN ABOUT THE ARTIST + CULTURAL PRACTITIONERS
Kelsey Daniels
Kelsey O. Daniels is an artist organizer and baddie scholar from Southeast San Diego. Her work centers on storytelling, world-building, and dreamwork as tools for liberation. As a fat Black queer disabled femme, Kelsey's work is rooted in a commitment to honoring her ancestors and descendants by revoking consent from the failed experiment of white supremacy and dreaming up worlds that are affirming and lit. She explores themes of identity, imagination, and ancestral memory through poetry, performance, and mixed media. She is an internationally ranked slam poet whose work has been platformed on VAST Press and as an opening act for Rupi Kaur's world tour. Kelsey founded Check, Please: an open mic experiment, a transformative platform that reimagines creative community by prioritizing connection over perfection. Additionally, Kelsey curates the Black Dream Experiment, a creative universe that explores Black dreaming as a collective ancestral, wellness, and liberation practice.