About Talking Back Season 2

Hosted by artEquity founder and executive director, Carmen Morgan, the first series filmed in 2019 brought artEquity's practice of facilitating hard and necessary conversations to a broader audience. The curtain was pulled back, and viewers gained insight into the activism and progress achieved by theatre practitioners across the field. This next three-part web series, Talking Back Season 2, will be no different.

 

The summer of 2020 caused unrest and deep sadness, not only with the pandemic but with the brutal murders of Black people. There seemed to be no hope. But during conversations with Black creatives, playwrights, and the community, we were reminded of the ways in which Black folks, in particular, have a way of converting trauma into other things. This was the inspiration for a series focused on the Black experience. Three years after the public lynching of George Floyd, where are we now? How have the global events of 2020 informed Black creative work? What have the institutional responses been to anti-Blackness? What does Black liberation look like, now and in the future? 

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Through engagement with Black creatives including playwrights, founding artistic directors, newly appointed leaders, and activists who have operated at all levels of leadership in arts organizations across the United States, we learn what it takes to transform, not just anti-Black institutions, but an anti-Black field. 
 

This series was created and produced by Sharifa Johka. Funding for the project was provided by the Mellon Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. 

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For more information, please see our press release.

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