Join us on Tuesday 24 Nov at 6:00 PM EST!

Intimate Access--Detroiters telling Embodied Stories-- a conversation with Aiko Fukuchi, Will See, Gwi-Seok Hong, Tawana Petty

Topics will include: Connecting familial and personal narratives, how we experience our bodies and sickness in our public lives and in our creative selves; how we experience Normative and/or Deviation as forces in our lives.

Relentless Bodies is a creative disability justice collective for Afrikan Indigenous and People of Color based in Detroit. Our collective of multi-dimensional beings gathers to intimately explore how our body-minds impact the narratives we create through our art.

Accessibility: We will have captioning provided for all events. We also will have ASL interpretation. Please contact williamwholenote@gmail.com if you have other accommodations you would need to participate fully.

This event is supported in part by Poets & Writers, thanks to a grant from the Hearst Foundations . The event is also sponsored by the Transforming Power Fund.

the Mutations in Relentless Bodies series continues:

The series will continue with “Weaving Stories within Relentless Bodies” Writing Workshops on December 5 and 12.

Owólabi William Copeland is an essayist, poet, cultural worker and MC from Detroit (aka Will See).

For 18+ years Will See has been putting in cultural work and community work in the city of Detroit. He is a regular contributor to Geez and Riverwise magazines. His essays include “Breaking America’s Laws,” and “A New African Speaks on Climate” For Riverwise Magazine he has written about the Detroit People’s Climate March, cultural events in Detroit, and other topics including an upcoming tribute to Southern healer and cultural organizer Elandria Williams. He also has written articles on Detroit’s climate/environmental justice movements for national audiences. Copeland’s poetry has been published in Drumvoices Revue, the Listen zine, and Museum Of Contemporary Arts Detroit's Telegraph. His science fiction poetry has received recognition by the Science Fiction Poetry Association and the Odd Contest. From 2003-2012 he was active as a spoken word artist and performed hundreds of times in Detroit and around the country. Now, he is passionate for making hip hop soundtracks of resistance that touch mind, body, and spirit including Environmental Justice anthems such as "Take tha House Back". His songs have traveled around the world and found their way into rallies, conferences, curricula, and trainings for social justice activists. He has released two hiphop albums and two mixtapes.

Aiko Fukuchi is a community organizer and writer living in Detroit, MI. Their writing explores themes including intergenerational trauma, joy, and knowledge, interwoven histories, solidarity, resistance, and home through a queer, Japanese American perspective. Since completing a writing mentorship program offered to immigrants and children of immigrants through the New York Fine Arts Program (NYFA) in 2019, their writing has been selected for the 2019 Gilda Snowden Award for Emerging Artists in Literary Arts, as well as the 2020 Room Project Winter Fellowship. Their work can be found in various publications including Everyday Feminism, The Body is Not an Apology, Michigan Daily, He(art) Magazine Online, Geez Magazine, and the Detroit Free Press. They have performed original short works at Trumbullplex, a local community creative space, and the Arab American National Museum. This past month, they lead a virtual writer’s workshop in partnership with Rising Voices of Asian American Families (RVAAF) which focused on collaborative narratives and the impact of familial relationships on our physical well-being as individuals.

Hong Gwi-Seok (she/they) embraces the space where body and language meet, as an Iyengar Yoga teacher, a poet and essayist, advocate for disability rights, and healing justice practitioner. As an immigrant, Detroit transplant, mother, and grandmother, Gwi-Seok occupies in-between spaces and generations, as a seeker and provider of healing and caring.

Tawana "Honeycomb" Petty is a mother, social justice organizer, youth advocate, poet and author. She is intricately involved in water rights advocacy, data and digital privacy education, and racial justice and equity work. She was born, raised and calls her home Detroit, Michigan. She is the author of Introducing Honeycomb,Coming Out My Box, thePetty Propolis Reader: My Personal and Political Evolution, and Towards Humanity: Shifting the Culture of Anti-Racism Organizing. Honeycomb is also a founding member and editorial board member of Riverwise Magazine.