Welcome
My name is Carla Chambers. I’m an artist, scholar, entrepreneur and the founder of The Embers Lab, a Black Womanist cross-disciplinary arts think-tank and incubator. It’s an anti-colonial space for working through emergent methodologies that have a holistic or transdisciplinary approach to making, presenting and understanding art.
My story
After living all over Canada and learning the business side of the arts, I have both noticed and experienced how few cultural spaces are dedicated to Black artistic communities. I’ve also witnessed and experienced that often Black artists, arts administrators, and scholars are often called upon to be thought leaders in equity initiatives. We do this work to ensure our ability to survive, but this comes at the expense of our own artistic practices, and many times our wellbeing.
As Black artists, at some point in our careers, we are often required to simultaneously express, heal, and protect ourselves from consistent anti-Blackness and patriarchy entrenched in colonial-based institutions and organizations. How sustainable is it for Black arts practitioners, educators, entrepreneurs, and leaders to fulfill their respective callings under these conditions? I found my colleagues felt similarly, so decided to start to indulge my craving for a space for us to begin to figure that out.
I created The Embers Lab to be a support me and future collaborators in artistic development and research. I believe there is more we can uncover that can deepen a sense of connectedness in the communities of Black artists. I am honoured to bring this expression of deep love for humanity into fruition. I welcome those willing to participate with me in this journey.
“(a womanist)
3. Loves music. Loves dance. Loves the moon. Loves the Spirit. Loves love and food and roundness. Loves struggle. Loves the Folk. Loves herself. Regardless.”
— Alice Walker, In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens
A Womanist Place
As Black women are often called upon to provide assistance to so many groups, in many various sectors, we are tired. While our intention is toward inclusiveness, I recognize the need for The Embers Lab to be a place of respite for Black female-identified people. I have both experienced and recognized a shift toward collectively (re)learning how to properly nourish ourselves, to return inward, to draw from our deepest resources for ourselves and our Black communities.
Research Interests
The purpose of my research is to understand how we use art for personal and collective recovery, repair, and restoration through social arts practices, and performance studies of the African diaspora.
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Poetics of Black Art
I consider Edouard Glissant’s Poetics of Relation with Black art and embodied aesthetic representations that rupture perceptions of errantry of Black life. Through a performance studies lens, I attempt to describe distinctions and politics between performativity and performances of Blackness that emerge in White-dominant creation spaces (the studio, rehearsal hall, the stage etc.).
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Geopolitics of Black Art
This is an exploration of art and creative practices within the context of Black geographies. I consider how works of art help to locate Black communities by articulating a sense of place and presence. My work looks at art as an entry point to impose, manipulate, or uncover the body politics of the spaces Blacks folks gather. My artistic practice works through understanding the power dynamics of place, through creative expression.
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Womanist Artistic Practices
This creative research proposes an art to social practice innovation by Black women that is informed by Womanism (Walker 1983) and the Oppositional Gaze (hooks 1995) , as syncretized through aesthetic rituals, art-making, and spirituality. This is a phenomenological exploration of the Oppositional Gaze through performance, and Womanist Artistic Practices inherited from African cultural traditions, disseminated through Diaspora.
“This focusing upon our own oppression is embodied in the concept of identity politics. We believe that the most profound and potentially most radical politics come directly out of our own identity, as opposed to working to end somebody else’s oppression.”
— Combahee River Collective, 1974-1980