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Black Femme Ecoverse is a multimedia digital exhibit exploring the intricate tapestry of Black womxn's relationships with their environment. We celebrate our spiritual connections to nature, aiming to nourish ancestral seeds of wisdom, challenge predominant food culture narratives, and amplify our voices as sou(i)l sisters of the Earth.
Our deeply interconnected journeys are an ode to generations who have nurtured the essence of Mother Earth, of ourselves. On this journey, we pay homage to Her bountiful gifts while celebrating the indomitable spirit of Black womxn.
How are Black womxn reimagining their foodways through healing, heritage, and liberation work with the land?
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How are Black womxn reimagining their foodways through healing, heritage, and liberation work with the land? 〰️
Meet the Sou(i)l Sistas
“Finding environmentalism saved my life.”
“ I’m a grower. I’m a lover. I’m a learner.”
“I am in my age of pleasure. Ease is a limitless resource, things can be easy.”
“We are mythology in the making.”
Connect with the inter-generational, interwoven journeys of these four Black femme farmers, Isa, Sanura, Jumia, and Gabe. Each one is transforming the garden beds of our relationships to the places and spaces we call home, inviting us to ask ourselves, what future do we dream for the future descendants of Mother Earth?
It all begins with a seed planted. The soft whisper of a calling answered. Drawing forth the deep inner well to turn poison into medicine, we are seeding dreams that will one day rise up to the Heavens, raised high n’ proud as an ode to visions planted long ago by our ancestors.
Meet 'Into the Black EcoVerse' creator — Ugo Ikoro —
Meet 'Into the Black EcoVerse' creator — Ugo Ikoro —
UGO IKORO
Ugo is a storyteller, food justice and public health advocate, land steward, and Food Culture Collective’s first Digital Culture Fellow.
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Ugo loves all things food, culture, and Black womxnhood! Ugo is a storyteller, food justice and public health advocate, and intimate land steward. She's passionate about co-creating cultural practices that foster healthier and more resilient spaces of belonging with the land in ways that feed our spirits and inspire us to reimagine life beyond carcerality. For Ugo, healing our Mother Earth, our sacred home, and our connection to it is the key to cultivating collective liberation, transformative justice, and a society centered on reciprocity, freedom, and love for all.
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Ugo was Food Culture Collective’s first Digital Culture Fellow.
The Fellowship is a 6-month paid term, where the Fellow dives into the question:
Can our relationship to digital media support our collective healing and transformation?During the fellowship, Ugo explored how to reimagine, curate, facilitate, and shape our digital spaces to nourish our communities and feed a food culture rooted in care.
To learn more about the fellowship visit foodculture.org/digital-culture-fellowship -
Black Food, Love & Liberation is an archival multimedia series curated by Ugo. Each week, she captured stories of joy, beauty, community care, and thriving (beyond surviving) hidden beneath mainstream narratives shaping Black foodways and our relationships to the land in the San Francisco East Bay.
REFLECTIONS ON CREATING ‘INTO THE BLACK FEMME ECOVERSE‘
Much like the microbes that bring life to our planet, we transform our surroundings—composting it and making it anew through our care and creativity.
With, Into the Black Femme Ecoverse, I explore how Black womxn in deep relationship with land and community today are reimagining their foodways through healing practices rooted in their lineages and liberation work. Together in conversation with 4 Black femmes across the US stewarding land and community, my fellow sou(i)l sojourners and I embraced what it means to be in mutual belonging with the places that nourish us and how it collectively transforms us.
This multimedia exhibit, shares how they are each reclaiming joy, liberation and abundance through relationships with food, land, and community. This project is also an invitation to embrace your own connections with food, land, and nourishment. It is an invitation to ask yourself, how might I care for these seeds of collective liberation and thriving forward with the people and places I call home?
Black Femme Ecosystem
a space to dream, get free, & support a sista. follow the trail that leads to streams of prosperity for all exercising their right to abundance, reclamation, and rematriation for the good of all.
Let us celebrate those who dare to claim their roles as healers, teachers, seed keepers, alchemists, & guardians of Mother Earth. Add to the ongoing spreadsheet of organizations, projects, and leaders in the Bay and beyond who are providing offerings to heal and be one with the planet for generations to come.