We are thrilled to invite you to the first chapter in the cycle curated by Kandis Williams of Cassandra Press at Page Not Found!

In this first gathering we will connect with Collective X, who published the poetry zine “Blackity Black Black Black” on the occasion of Cassandra Press’ LUMA Westbau exhibition in 2021. Kandis Williams will engage in conversation with Collective X members Meloe Gennai, Titilayo Adebayo and Deborah Macauley. 

Collective X is a collective of Black Trans and Queer people with multiple faces. They are artists and creators of spaces and narratives. Art allows them to form a community and survive, sharing through exhibitions, readings, workshops, meetings and performances in respect of their identities, their limits and in community love. The Collective X speaks French, German, Italian, Creole, English… because it was formed by Afro-Swiss and Afro-French people, it aims to speak as many languages as trajectories, and to promote artistic exchanges in the Black and Queer diaspora of the universe.

Deborah Macauley aka E-F-U-A Born On Friday aka Debster is a young Afro-Austrian hybrid artist, performer, dj, poet, curatorial/production assistant/manager in the field of film, cultural art, theatre. She is also a theatre pedagogue in training. She lives in Zurich/Vorarlberg and has worked mainly in the Europe. Born to a Sierra Leonean mother and Ghanian father, in Gambia, Deborah also refers to herself as “Westafrican Titi” (Titi = Krioword for girl*/woman*). She sees herself as a community networker. As a member of Blash (Black Femme People in Switzerland), the program team of the association Zentralwäscherei (an event center in Zurich Switzerland), the collective listenandspeak.at and other low-threshold groups like netzwerk.bipoc.woc, queer and poppin’, etc. Her focus is to make Black, Indigenous and People of Colour more visible in daily life and to create connection points between different people. As a performer Deborah has recently been on screens of Locarno Filmfestival with the short film „Heart Fruit“ from Kim Allamand and the Venice Biennale 2022 with „When The Body Says Yes“ from Melanie Bonajo and at Lafayette Anticipations exhibition of „The Show Is Over“ in 2021 from Wu Tsang.

Titilayo Adebayo is a non-binary movement researcher and creative of Nigerian decent. Born 1994 in the UK (which explains the ambiguous British accent), they trained in London at the University Roehampton, followed by tours and various creative projects – starting with Trajal Harrell, but also shows with, but not limited to, Paul Maheke and touring with Ligia Lewis. Titilayo is constantly in flux with emergence. Emerging from where? Emerging towards what? Who knows? (Does it matter?) They aim to bring a holistic approach to creating and experiencing performance. Their practice lies in these principles.

Meloe Gennai is a poet. They are currently conducting a post- graduate artistic research on (their) illegibility, disabled poetry and aesthetics of survival. Meloe grew up among Black women who were activists, artists, writers and scholars; and to which they owe their early political consciousness. They graduated in Law, Literature and History and worked as a teacher and policy officer; until trans disabled experience realness let them to develop an art practice which explores embodied narratives through poems, moving images and performance.

The poetry zine “Blackity Black Black Black” will be available for sale at a price of €15 with 100% of the proceeds going to the collective.

For those who cannot join us IRL there is a livestream available.

Starts at 14:00.

This is a free event.