The Griots

(/ˈɡriː.oʊ/)

  • A Black woman with a curly Afro and wearing a in a long gold dress looks off camera at a white wall with the words, ‘I can’t put it down’ in black vinyl.

    Keya Crenshaw

    Keya, the Founder of SSC, is a multi-hyphenate creative, 200hr RYT, and cultural enterprise consultant. She has worked with artists & organizations around the globe including Nigeria, the UK, New York, & Germany.

  • A Black woman in a black dress with a denim top stands against a beige brick wall with 2 pieces of art hanging on it. She smiles towards the camera.

    April Sunami

    April, a professional visual artist, primarily focusing on mixed-media painting and installation. Her work has been widely exhibited in galleries and museums around the world including Cuba, Ghana, & Ohio.

  • A Black woman in a beige top stands in front of a purple and blue painting hanging on a wall.

    Lisa Shepherd

    Lisa is a visual artist who primarily works with items that are broken or in need of repair, and repurposes them to create something new. She brings interconnectedness of all beings to her art.

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Land Acknowledgement

An Invocation for the First Peoples of This Land

We acknowledge that we gather, create, and dream on the ancestral homelands of the Shawnee, Myaamia, Lenape, Wyandot, Haudenosaunee, Odawa, Ojibwe, Potawatomi, Peoria, Kaskaskia, Wea, Piankashaw, Erie, Moneton, Mosopelea, Tutelo, Saponi, Cherokee, Munsee, and other Indigenous peoples whose stewardship of this land continues despite centuries of displacement, removal, and erasure.

We also acknowledge that many Indigenous histories, names, languages, kinship systems, and records were intentionally suppressed, destroyed, misidentified, or absorbed into colonial archives. As a result, not all nations, communities, and ancestors connected to this land can be fully named here.

We honor them as the original and ongoing caretakers of this place. We recognize that Indigenous sovereignty has never been ceded and that this remains Aboriginal land.

We pray for the reclamation and repatriation of sacred lands, for the flourishing of Indigenous communities, and for a future rooted in relationship, reciprocity, and Land Back.