Kindred Creation: Parables and Paradigms for Freedom

Black History Book Event - Aida Mariam Davis in conversation with Feven and Helena Yohannes: Kindred Creation: Parables and Paradigms for Freedom.

Hosted at the Westfield Culver City Mall inside Malik Books. This is event is part of the Literary events of the Pan African Film Festival. PAFF is hosting it's annual Art Festival at the Westfield Culver City Mall.

Discussion about:

A vital path home. Employing African epistemologies and an embodied African beingness, this book embraces the revelation and miracle of Blackness.
Creating a world worthy of our children requires recalling the dignity and distinction of the African way of life.
This book is not written for settler consumption. Kindred Creation is a call and response to dream and design better worlds rooted in African lifeways: a path to Black freedom, a love letter to Black futures, and a blueprint to intergenerational Black joy and dignity—all (and always) on Black terms.
Author, organizer, and designer Aida Mariam Davis explores the historical and ongoing impacts of settler colonialism, making explicit the ways that extraction, oppression, and enslavement serve the goals of empire—not least by severing ancestral connections and disrupting profound and ancient relationships to self, nature, and community.
Structured in three parts—Remember, Refuse, and Reclaim—Kindred Creation is a philosophical guidebook and a vital invitation to power and reconnection. Davis employs parable, poetry, theory, memory, narrative, and prophecy to help readers:

• Remember: By unforgetting the unending and cascading violence of settler colonialism and other forms of domination and exploring the ways that African land, language, lifestyle, and labor are stolen, distorted, and repackaged for colonial consumption to extract capital and sever ties to ancestral knowledge, lifeways, and dignity
  
• Refuse: By rejecting and interrupting death-making institutions and relationships and choosing kinship and self-determination in the face of settler colonial violence
  
• Reclaim: By revealing that freedom is within us—and within reach. Davis shares how the reader can birth new worlds and relationships and offers strategies for reclaiming land, language, lifestyle, and labor.
  

The colonial violence and dispossession of African land, language, and labor is inflicted intentionally—and by design. Reclaiming African lifeways and remembering what was forcibly forgotten must be by creation: a re-membering of our interconnectedness and kinship.

About Aida Mariam Davis

Author, founder, and organizer Aida Mariam Davis is relentlessly committed to the dignity and distinction of the African and Black way of life. She is part of a long tradition of poets, philosophers, and prophets who participate in liberation movements in the US and abroad. Specifically, she is a descendant of anticolonial fighters who kept Ethiopia free from colonialism when virtually all of Africa was colonized.

Her life’s work has been to excavate the historical and ongoing impacts of settler colonialism, making explicit the ways in which extraction, oppression, and enslavement serve the goals of empire—not least by severing ancestral connections and disrupting profound and ancient relationships to self, nature, and community. Mariam Davis is the founder of Decolonize Design and Kindred Creation is her first book.

Feven and Helena Yohannes bio

Feven and Helena Yohannes, Eritrean twin sisters, are the epitome of resilience and entrepreneurial drive. Born in a Sudanese refugee camp and granted political asylum at the age of two, they relocated to Rochester, New York, where they transformed adversity into opportunity, paving the way for a remarkable journey.
In 2014, they created fevenandhelena.com as a platform to connect with women, share their passions, and celebrate diversity, elegance, and empowerment. Their desire to make a meaningful impact led them to launch 2•4•1 Cosmetics, a clean beauty brand that celebrates natural beauty, confidence, and authenticity. The name "2•4•1" reflects their belief that
brains and beauty go hand in hand, an ethos that has propelled their brand to success.
Their innovative approach to beauty, focusing on enhancement rather than concealment, earned them a coveted spot on Oprah's Favorite Things list in both 2020 and 2022. Their products, which embody diversity and empowerment, are now available at Bloomingdale's, Amazon, and QVC, further showcasing their vision of beauty with purpose.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Malik Books, 6000 Sepulveda Boulevard, Culver City, United States