Wordplay: Poetry Collage with GrioXArts

Kara Mshinda (she/her/hers) is a visual anthropologist based in the Philadelphia-area. She is best known for using collage, print media, and lo-fi photography to develop artworks about identity, place, community, and daily life. Mshinda is a co-founder and collaborator of GrioXArts, an art studio space that focuses on building community via process-based art education at Cherry Street Pier. Mshinda has taught courses and led workshops at Tyler School of Art and Architecture, Da Vinci Art Alliance, and at community spaces throughout greater Philadelphia. She is a member of Tiger Strikes Asteroid, an artist-run gallery space.

Duwenavue Santé Johnson is a BIPOC artist with a rich heritage spanning both the northern and southern regions of the United States over the past four centuries. She specializes in heraldry, hand-embroidery, mixed media collage, and contemporary art. Johnson’s artistic style has been influenced by her extensive travels and her exposure to spectrums of color, textiles, and motifs from every corner of the globe. She is best known for ingeniously merging a variety of painting and textile methods into her artwork which reflects her formal training in needle arts and diverse art education background. Johnson is the founder of Mason Stitch Art Collective and operates an atelier, ArtXStitch at the Bok Building in South Philadelphia. She is a founding collaborator of GrioXArts, an art studio space that focuses on building community via process-based art education at Cherry Street Pier.