Episode 11: The Courage to Feel + Permission to Dream with Jamilla Okubo
“I just love the fact the Sun Ra was showing people and actually taking the initiative to dream up a future for Black people.”
in this episode
What kind of future do you imagine for yourself and for your community? What is your spirit calling you to lean into? What does reclaiming agency mean for you? In this episode, Shelby sits down with Jamilla Okubo in conversation around how powerful it is to take space to feel deeply what wants to express without judgment rather than habitually surrender to societal norms. They also get into their gratitude for Sun Ra and the dreamscape of Black futures he dared to imagine. Shelby encourages that we can never go wrong with prioritizing self-care because we are all connected to everything. Shelby and Jamilla also get into self trust and true community as foundation for spirituality and wellness. Jamilla shares how intuition led her to develop her voice as an artist and build mutually nourishing relationships with immediate and extended community, and offers a peek into her creative process and self-care practices. This episode will inspire you to imagine fruitful futures for yourself and for your community. It’ll also remind you that you’re safe to feel and move through all of your feelings.
About Jamilla
Jamilla Okubo is an interdisciplinary artist exploring the intricacies of belonging to an American, Kenyan, and Trinidadian identity. Combining figurative painting, pattern/textile design, fashion, and storytelling, she celebrates the Black body in relation to movement, expression, ideology, and culture. Inspired by kanga cloth, which communicates messages derived from Swahili proverbs, quotes from the Qur’an, African folklore and popular culture, Okubo creates her own patterns in reference to the history, mythology, and vernacular of the African diaspora. She prints these original patterns on paper as collage material for her paintings or on fabric for fashion and performance-based work. The gestural strength of her imagery and symbolism is a platform for restoring agency and reclaiming the oppositional gaze. Style, embraced for sociopolitical impact, woven with ancestral and contemporary wisdom invites the viewer to reflect on old and new mythologies, alternative realities, and self-love.
Jamilla (b. Clinton, NC) is based in Washington, D.C. She holds a BFA in Integrated Design from Parsons the New School of Design. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, in venues such as The Torpedo Factory (VA), Social & Public Art Resource Gallery (CA), Milk Gallery (NY), Weeksville Heritage Center (NY), Super Wonder Gallery (Toronto) and the Dray Walk Gallery (London). She has created art installations for Culture Corp x Hudson Yards (NY), and the Line Hotel (DC). In addition, her work has been reproduced for publications and purchased for private collections. Notable publications of her work have appeared in O, Oprah Magazine and the covers of An American Marriage, Tayari Jones (Oneworld Publishing House) and Den Omättliga Vägen, Ben Okri (Modernista Group AB). She has collaborated with XDevoe, Gorman, and Christian Dior. Currently, she is represented by Mehari Sequar Gallery (DC).
