AAMP Salon: When I See Cotton, I See Red
Friday, December 7, 7 pm
$12 Advance | $18 General Admission | Free for Members

On Friday, December 7, in conjunction with our fall exhibition Cotton: The Soft Dangerous Beauty of the Past, AAMP Salon returns with When I See Cotton, I See Red, an evening of short film, performance, and poetry co-curated by Philadelphia’s own Ursula Rucker.

Building upon the exhibition themes of spirituality, the lasting effects of chattel slavery, and our tangled relationship with cotton in the U.S., AAMP presents bridge/refrain by filmmaker Roni Nicole Henderson, Cotton by performance artist Monstah Black, along with performances by sound artist Hprizm. The evening also features Philly’s own award-winning poet Ursula Rucker, as the evening’s curator and host.

Doors open at 6 pm with an open gallery hour, and the program begins at 7 pm. Following the performance and screening, the artists will sit down for a discussion and Q&A. Limited tickets for this event will be available. Don’t wait, grab your tickets today!

Featured Artists

Ursula Rucker

Ursula Rucker is a Philadelphia born poet, mother, activist and recording artist. She has been performing, recording and releasing works for over 20 years. Ursula has traveled and toured extensively, throughout North America, Europe, Asia, Australia, New Zealand and Africa…sharing her poetry…her heart and soul. She is dedicated to art as/for social change…and committed to freedom fighting, truth-telling and peace-(and a little trouble 😉 making through her chosen art form.

Ursula believes in taking her art as far as it can go…whether it be through teaching, activism, lecturing, conducting workshops, merging it with music and recording or rocking mics and stages.

To date, Ursula has released five solo albums (Supa Sista, Silver or Lead, ma’at mama, Ruckus Soundsysdom, SHE SAID)…as well as collaborated on over 100 songs, in a wide array of musical genres, with producers/artists from around the world (such as King Britt, Bahamadia, The Roots, 4 Hero, Jazzanova, Louie Vega, Incognito). Ursula was awarded both the Leeway Foundation’s Art for Change & Transformation Awards. She is the feature of a documentary short called POET. In 2015, she successfully premiered her first one-woman show/live memoir My Father’s Daughter, and is still touring with it.

Most recently, Ursula is most proud of her Monument Lab piece “Logan Squared”, an epic poetic ode to her beloved city Philadelphia…as well as…Voices of Kensington, the poetry series she curates thru the Philadelphia Mural Arts Program…geared towards healing and giving voice to the Kensington community greatly affected by opioid addiction.

But the latest shining feather in Ursula’s cap…is being named a 2018 Pew Fellow. Currently, Ursula is working on her 6th solo album, and planning her first book project…and always looking forward to making and sharing art with the people in as many ways as possible.

Monstah Black | Cotton

Cotton, a dance film accompanied by live musical performance. The work investigates the idea of physical transformation as a source for healing and a means to overcome Post Traumatic Stress Disorder passed on for generations through DNA. Black employs images from slavery as a point of departure, modifying the images into positive iconography to inspire and empower those that suffered and continue to suffer from its ugly legacy. “It’s a matter of taking the historical facts from the ugly side of history, and then reshaping it for myself and others to achieve empowerment and affirmation,” Black says.

Black has performed at venues and festivals internationally as solo artist as well as with his husband Manchildblack as the electronic duo “The Illustrious Blacks”. Venues include, Ku De Ta, Bali, Indonesia, Afterglow Festival Provincetown, Massachusetts, Mt. Tremper Arts, Phonecia (NY), New Media Art Festival, Moscow, Art Basel Miami, The Whitney Annual Gala, The Smithsonian, Performa Biennial (NY), Joe’s Pub (NY), Dance New Amsterdam (NY), New York Live Arts, Movement Research (NY), Dixon Place (NY), The Smithsonian Institute (DC), Lincoln Center Out Of Doors and Summer Stage Central Park (NY).

Roni Nicole Henderson | bridge / refrain

bridge/refrain is a short film exploring a young woman’s arrival in the land of the ancestors after falling victim to gun violence. Here, she discovers that though there is healing for her wounds and safety in the arms of benevolent beings, her work is far from done. A beautiful antique vanity serves as a vehicle through which she discovers her charge and her crown: black bodies, buckling, but not breaking under the weight of American life. She takes her place amongst those who uphold us. The Crowned Ones.

Roni Nicole Henderson is a Columbia, SC-based photographer and filmmaker. She earned her MFA in Film and Television at Savannah College of Art and Design and was the recipient of the A. Gregory Peeler Fellowship for Graduate Study. Her work has been exhibited in galleries, museums, and film festivals across the country and internationally including Spelman Museum of Fine Art, Leonard Pearlstein Gallery at Drexel University, the Museum of Contemporary Art Georgia, The National Black Arts Festival, Indie Grits, Blackstar Film Festival, Pan African Film Festival, Africa in the Picture, and many more. She has published work in the 2018 release, MFON: Women Photographers of the African Diaspora and in 2017 she self-published a memoir entitled Of Grace and Moons: The Making of Grace. Roni is currently an Indie Grits Lab Filmmaker-in-Residence and her recent work bridge/refrain was commissioned by the Columbia Museum of Art.

Hprizm (Kyle Austin)

Hprizm (Kyle Austin) is a American composer/performer hailed as an innovator by the likes of TIME, NY TIMES and Rolling Stones. His pioneering synthesis of Hip Hop, Avant Jazz and Electronic Composition often draws comparison to Afrofuturist visionary Sun Ra. As the founder of the seminal collective [Antipop Consortium] he has shared the stages and spaces with the like of Public Enemy, Radiohead, Ornette Coleman, Roscoe Mitchell and many more.