Join the Just Praxis Circle:
A Sanctuary for BIPOC Creatives to Build, Heal, and Reimagine
The Just Praxis Circle is an initiative of the Imagine Just Community program. It is a collectively led and diverse coalition of artists, cultural producers, and creatives. This is a container for living out our transformative, liberatory values and shifting power and agency to those historically excluded from making decisions about the solutions, interventions, and resources people and communities of color need within the arts and culture space. This circle includes grantees of the Imagine Just Community-Advised Fund for BIPOC Arts Organizations and an Imagine Just Artist Fellow.
We are looking for practicing individual artists who are committed to weaving together the threads of rest, creativity and action in the chaos of today's political climate. The Just Praxis Circle seeds new social rhythms that challenge grind culture, oppose the narrative that the arts are disposable and bring the arts to the center of social justice strategy.
Please join us for the four remaining circles of 2025. And keep an eye out for our fellowship application for 2026.
Location:
Casa De Cultura
2057 W 18th St,
Chicago, IL 60608
Time: 10-2pm
Dates: August 16th, September 20th, October 18th, November 15th
Objectives:
-To create a collective of people committed to the Praxis of Justice in their everyday lives.
-To use Just Praxis retreat spaces to rest, restore, and practice for our future without White supremacy.
-To use Just Praxis retreat spaces to respond to issues happening in real-time with people and organizations.
-To create a space where people can refine who they are outside their organization.
Structure:
- Full Day Retreat once a quarter
Retreats are held in person in locations around the city of Chicago.
Commitment:
- Attendance at quarterly retreats
- Actively connect with Just Praxis Circle members in between retreats (electronic communications, one-on-one meetings, outings to support circle member events, etc.)
Circle Retreats:
-Each circle begins with a collective rest practice.
-For the second half of the day, we bring together creative making practices with dialogue around justice and action in our communities.
-For the first time this year, we are practicing resource pooling where the group collectively distributes $500 to Chicago artists and arts organizations as a way to empower each other to ask for what we need and to inspire a knowing that there are ways to resource each other.
All types of artists, visual, dance, performance, film, music etc are encouraged to join the circle this year and apply for the fellowship next year.
Our Facilitator, Sojourner Zenobia (They/Them)
Sojourner Zenobia (they/them), Sojourner has completed decades of somatic performance training at Marymount Manhattan, Pearl Ubungen’s BFA at Naropa University, The School at Steppenwolf and Pantheatre’s Roy Hart school in Paris. They have trained in connecting with ancestors, nature and the spirit world and healing facilitation at Life Force Arts in Chicago, they trained in circle keeping with Circles and Ciphers and Kay Pranis, and in 2021 they completed Tracee Stanley and Chanti Tacoronte-Perez’s yoga nidra Training.
Sojourner found spirituality through the practice of presence as a performer. This portal of presence opened up the Buddhist path to them and the Buddhist practice opened the healing of connecting with the earth. They became the spider that they were terrified of as a child and began to weave together everything that gave them feelings of trust, hope and freedom. They are now an embodied sacred space facilitator, installation artist, experimental vocalist, body mover and earth steward.
For the past 10 years Sojourner has held a meditation and ritual space called “Stillness,” where they have guided hundreds of BIPOC queer folks in deepening their connection with ancestors, nature and personal spiritual gifts. Sojourner is currently exploring stillness by trusting the wisdom that emerges in their body at quiet moments and by trusting the relationships in their life.
Testimonials from our Just Praxis Members….
{...} it’s really energizing to be around a group of people who share such strong values. I trust that everyone will carry this forward beyond this space, staying connected to the thinking we’ve explored here (…).
“To me, this is the best version of our hopes realized. If y’all feel as held as I do, then we’ve done something right. Because it shouldn’t just be “Here’s some funds.” It should be: Here’s a community. Here are people you can lean on. What do you need? What can our community offer? It’s not just on the organization. It’s not just on the individual. We got us. We are all we have.”
“Sometimes you're just tired. And sometimes, you can lay down and still take in the information. It's not about working 24/7. It’s about leaning on community. Sometimes I don’t have 100%, but if we all bring a little, we can still do something strong together. I wish more people could be part of this and see it for themselves. I know so many people working themselves to the bone. But it's okay to rest. It's okay to take a nap. To shake it out, to wiggle. To do the small, human things we need—not just to survive, but to thrive.”
