Not Real Art

In today’s episode of the Not Real Art Podcast, guest host and prolific Los Angeles-based muralist Erin Yoshi speaks with Ashara Ekundayo about the power of joy-informed art for resistance and healing. Ashara is a Black feminist, an independent curator, an artist, and an interdisciplinary creative arts leader committed to an intersectional framework of social transformation that expands the influence and impact of arts and culture on racial and gender equity and environmental literacy, and more specifically one that necessitates a practice of recognizing joy in the midst of struggle. Tuning in, you’ll learn more about the work that Ashara does through her nonprofit, Artist as First Responder, which acknowledges that artists show up first in crisis and celebration to forge solutions, heal communities, and save lives through design, practice, invitation, and presentation. Ashara shares her mission to hold space for creative labor, to create beautiful narratives about joy and pleasure in a society so focused on