My political obligations? I am a Black woman … in world that defines
human as white and male for starters. Everything I do including survival is
political.” ~Audre Lorde
Kim Crosby is a
daughter of the diaspora, Arawak, West African, Indian and Dutch, hailing from
Trinidad and living currently in Toronto.
A queer survivor,
she is an award-winning multidisciplinary artist, activist, consultant,
facilitator and educator. She completed her artist residency under D’bi Young
at the AnitAfrika Theatre and also was a student of the Buddies In Bad Times
Young Creator’s Unit, touring internationally with her one womyn play, “Hands
In My Cunt” a biomythographical account of her resistance and experience of
sexual violence.
In 2009 she was the Youthline Award Winner for "Outstanding
Contribution To Community Empowerment”. In 2010 she was named one of YSEC’s 100
Young Changemakers while also being recognized in Canada’s Northern
Lights Exhibition: Celebrating African Canadian Stories. In 2011,
she was recognized as one of 12 of the City Of Toronto’s Cultural Champions among
such brilliant activists as Lillian Allen.
She has spoken on panels and conferences nationally as
well as facilitated radical community dialogues including Queer As Black Folk
hosted by The Black Daddies Club and was the keynote speaker at the 2011 Unity
Conference.
Her writing and her voice has been featured in the
Toronto Star, The Huffington Post, George Brown University textbooks as well as
Autostraddle and her writing can be found at queergiftedblack.blogspot.com
Supporting the creation of community arts and allocation
of resources, she sits on the boards of Artreach, Mayworks, the Toronto Arts
Council and most recently the Rhubarb selection committee. She also regularly
curates and co-curates events and exhibits including the annual Gender
Exhibition in Toronto.
Kim is a core
member of the nationally touring Lesbian Blues group, a collective of Black
Queer Folks committed to decolonization through creative political performance
as well as T-Dot Renaissance, a
wave of cultural and artistic collaborations for this generation of emerging
artists of colour.
Kim is the co-founder
and co-director of The People Project. Awarded
the City Of Toronto’s Vital Ideas award in 2010, TPP is a movement of queer and trans folks of color and our allies, committed to
individual and community empowerment through alternative education, activism
and collaboration.
Through her work at The People Project, she has consulted and supported
organizations the world over including Brown Boi Project, The Harmony Movement,
The Grassroots Youth Collaborative, Stolen From Africa as well as the Toronto
District School Board and The City Of Toronto Cultural Arts Division. In this
work she has developed and co-developed over 50 distinct resources and tools as
well as delivered over 150 workshops around race, gender, power, privilege,
consent, creation, food and entrepreneurship.
She is also a co-founder of the New York based ‘The Brown Grrlz Project’, a collective dedicated to the advancement of “femme of centre” cis womyn, two-spirit people, intersex people and trans womyn.
In over a decade of community organizing, she has worked across the
intersections of oppression in food justice, HIV activism as well as race &
gender justice. She is also a yoga teacher teaching through the Brown Girl’s
Yoga collective.
She is inspired, honoured and driven by the incredible work of community
activists past and present including Punam Kholsla, Angela Davis, Audre Lorde,
Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Mia Mingus and Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha.
I'm not sure if you remember me but i was at the racialized and aboriginal women symposium and I found your panel to be awesome and encouraging I would like to keep in touch with you and my friend sandra has also been looking for your info you can send me an email at Lissette.Perez07@gmail.com
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