Ashara Ekundayo
Ashara Ekundayo
About: Ashara Ekundayo is an independent curator, artist, creative industries entrepreneur and organizer working internationally across cultural, spiritual, civic, and social innovation spaces. Her intersectional worldview offers both an Afrofuturist and radical Black feminist framework to the public sector by centering the lives, traditions, and expertise of Black womxn of the African Diaspora.
As a social practice installation artist who designs site-specific commissioned altar pieces, documents justice uprisings, stewards public meditation ceremonies, and designs public printmaking sessions, Ashara’s works are intentionally collaborative, interdisciplinary, and intergenerational. Additionally, as an art buyer/advisor and gallerist, she has supported emerging and well-established artists and founded Omi Arts Project Space (2012-2017) inside her company Impact Hub Oakland, and the Ashara Ekundayo Gallery (2017-2019) which was celebrated as the only commercial gallery in the USA exclusively dedicated to the exhibition of work of Black womxn and femmes.
Currently, Ashara serves as Chief Creative Catalyst at the Bay Area Girls & Womxn of Color Collaborative and sits on the Advisory Board of the Oakland Public Conservatory of Music and the Regional Advisory Board for Arts Web Alameda County. Her newest creative projects include BLATANT – a multi-disciplinary, monthly forum presented in collaboration with the Museum of the African Diaspora as well as a published maga(zine) offered in conjunction with her platform Artist As First Responder which excavates, documents, and archives the stories of present-day and next generation cultural workers whose art practices heal communities and save lives. Ashara recently launched the Reflection Fund for Artist and is co-founder of Black [Space] Residency, a physical container for imagination, inquiry, activity and rest. Ashara.io
Instagram: www.instagram.com/blublakwomyn
