♪ [Music] >>I think for me being Black in Denver is like that experience of being that fish in the desert >> It's interesting to discover as you travel around the country what it means to be Black in different places.

>> We will listen to our message knowing from whence we come that we are strong.

♪ [Music] >> Black in Denver is an art-based research project, I call it ethnography,I've called it a portrait interview series I have even called it an ode to a community of people.

But the work takes a look at identity.

It investigates identity and what it means to be you, and what makes you you and how you make up a collective, I am into all about how we are interconnected to one another, it takes a look at a community using the self, so I put myself in the community to understand what I'm seeing and experiencing.

So it is a lot of listening to understand, my whole space is full of participants who shared who they are, and a very safe space.

A way for them to open up and be vulnerable and be authentic, so yes, black in Denver is a research project,it's a portrait interview series, it's visual art, it is a number of things.

♪ [Music] >> To be Esther means to laugh a lot, to walk into a room and try to bring some positive light into the room.

>> I want to know more than I can know.

I want to do more than I can do.

>> Be you.

Don't let anybody else define you.

>> Black defines culture and style in every city.

It just does.

>> I think we are not a monolith, obviously.

I think there's so many different layers to every black experience that it just continues to grow and evolve.

>> I think it was Susie Q who said in her Black in Denver interview that was in the museum exhibit, being black in Denver is like being a fish in the desert.

And finding other black people is like finding your water.

>> Who am I?

I am a strong, powerful, energetic, happy, playful person who celebrates every day.

>> We have several levels of healing, so we have a generational healing for me personally and we have the collective whole as the black community.

And so we take on different emotions and frequencies from our ancestors.

>> When it comes to the colors, the color theory is just really interesting to me in general.

And it took me a while to get to the place where I realized that oh, I am using the color spectrum because I want to talk about the nuance in blackness, I want to talk about the diversity in blackness, and that's with the color spectrum is supposed to represent is the fact that we are so many different things.

Our community is so vast but we have been painted with one brush by the media, for a very long time.

>> A part of my process is conversation, we sit down and have a one on one intimate conversation before we even take the photo.

That's what allows me to really connect with them through photography, I get them to open up and we get comfortable and I take a photo.

I take a lot of photos actually.

And then I look for their eyes because what I'm trying to do with my work is for you to see your reflection in them, because we are all connected right?

And that's what I really want my photos to do is I want them to see you and I want you to see them.

♪ [Music] >> I really think that blackness is my essence.

It is the embodiment of who I am.

So I would say my art is my blackness, whatever I do within this black body is my blackness.

How I show up is my blackness.

I think that the word black and when it comes to race, I think about it as a social construct.

So when we can get past the idea that you know, this is something that was created for us, and we can get deeper into the fact that what it means to be black is something much deeper that it is this blackness that it's how I express myself.

That's what it means to me, and for me personally, I would say it means to be a nerd, like it means to be extremely curious it means to be someone who is willing to step into the unknow and learn something new.

That's what makes me, and unique to everyone else.

>> Blackness has a tendency to be not necessarily more united, but I guess like more communal.

>> My name is Esther Lee Leach and I am from the beautiful island of St. Lucia, I grew up there.

You walk into your room and that is the first thing people see.

You don't see Esther like in another country, they just see oh this a black woman.

I'm going to put all of my stereotypes and prejudices on her before she even opens her mouth, tells me who she is and shows me who she is.

So I kind of had to learn to embrace that.

I'm a black immigrant, I'm going to be a black immigrant, I'm going to show up with my huge Afro and take over the room.

>> I think it can be really difficult.

I think it can be really easy to be tokenized.

But I think for me, it's also kind of tricky because when I was growing up and even after getting my identity as an adult, there's certain things like, you know, I am in spaces and I love talking about hip-hop and fashion all those things, but also have like a very strong African identity.

Sometimes people don't really understand, Oh you know?

you talk weird, or their are like, why do you care about these things that don't really make sense to an American who is five generations from five points or something?

And so I think for me being black in Denver is like that experience of being that fish in the desert but then also like sometimes looking around and being like I don't fully fit into the school of fish either some times.

>> We are forced to spend a lot of time with our blackness.

Whatever that means to the person forcing you into that, that paradigm or whatever it means to you, we don't get to walk out of the house as anyone else but who we are every day.

And for most of us, we are judged before we ever open our mouths because of the color of our skin or our features.

It's interesting to discover as you travel around the country, what it means to be black in different places.

Because it does mean something to different people from different places.

There is an expectation, there's a type.

But just being black in general no matter where you are at, I don't care if you're here in the states or if you are in South America or in London or Canada, trauma is something that goes strong within the narrative of blackness, and I think unpacking trauma and redefining that is helping to get to this whole collective consciousness.

>> For me liberation, I think of liberation of the mind, and body, specifically the black body and not taking the homogenous view of the dominant culture as a framework of being.

I think black liberation specifically is you know allowing ourselves to reveal our natural tresses, whether none or the diverse array that we have.

Authentically, I think our voices speak our bodies move differently.

>> I own Smith and Camden's ice cream and coffee shop in Denver, Colorado, we are at York and Colfax.

We've been there for three years.

I guess I always thought that entrepreneurialism was maybe one of the ways that a black person in this country could circumvent some of the built in stigmas, and typing that occurs with being an employee.

So it was kind of surprising to me to get here and have so many black people kind of say oh my gosh, congratulations or, really, this is owned by a black person?

>> This one song, don't touch my hair is a perfect example of like a micro-aggression.

People want to explore who you are through making assumptions or touching you, all these different ideas so I feel like in Denver, because there are so few representations of blackness, we are more of an idea and because we are more of an idea to I guess you know, eurocentric America, we have a tendency to experience microaggressions on the more regular basis.

So we have a tendency to have to address I guess stereotypes and stigmas that are put onto us and through the stereotypes and stigmas, we kind of experience I don't know in conversations, we experience like do you all do this or that, assumptions.

>> When you think about the fact that black people our history began as we were not people in this country, we were tools, we were property, we were symbols of wealth.

We were not people, we were commodities.

And so that is horrible to have that type of mindset pushed on you.

Then, as we rejected that, we began to find ways to move away from that.

You know, the effects of that are still far-reaching, because the strife that our grandmothers went through, it's in our DNA.

But the wisdom that they also have for us is in our DNA.

And so I like to balance this experience in people's mind to say yes intergenerational trauma is a real thing.

The micro-aggression of ways that our society is, also adds to that.

And so we have no choice but to go inside, we have no choice but to come together and find kindred that can stand with us.

And, in doing this, we are changing the molds, every time we reject something that is inequitable, we are breaking the cycle.

♪ [Music] >> When I ask people the question, who are you?

Sometimes the response I hear is I'm a black man or I'm a black woman, and I allow that to be the answer, for folks to think beyond that.

Because I know that's something I've been assigned and I think within the media that is sometimes all we think about is I am this, and there is nothing else there but we are so many different things.

I am many things and because I am many things, I am always evolving and changing because I am many things and I have a lot of communities that I exist in.

So I am constantly moving between the communities that make up my identity.

>> I only knew how to be black, like me and I never ever worried about what that meant to somebody else and you only discover what it means to somebody else when you really focus on just being you.

>> A lot of the time, some of these people will say [Speaking Foreign Language] which basically means believe in your own heart.

And so the idea is to follow the compass that your spirit is leading you toward.

>> To be here in Denver to me means showing up as my full self, and I have never really had to do that in America before and I'm trying to explain from the perspective of an immigrant because I am a black immigrant, so for the first time I sort of had to confront that this is my black skin, I grew up in the Caribbean, you just think about it you just are.

Do you know what I mean?

We have so many black people around us, all different mixtures and colors and shapes, so you just wake up thinking I am Esther.

There is no reason to think about your race and I like that I grew up that way, there was no sort of burden because of my race, and I get to America and Denver and suddenly it's like that's what people see first.

>> All you gotta do is just show up, because your presence, black people's presence particularly in a white environment makes you very different and you are noticed and you change, when you come in the room, you change the room.

You know people notice, because a lot of us particular black people, we do not have some somebody to really talk to on a real level about the thinge kind of are afraid to talk about, and so if you find somebody that you can do that that opens up a lot of possibilities for yourself.

>> It's just that here I am, and how do I navigate and what do I do, and what do I believe, so whether I am in Denver, or wherever I am, it's being comfortable with being me.

I stop and think, what can I celebrate today?

And then something automatically pops into my head, which makes a shift in my thoughts and attitude so that is why I celebrate, celebrate, celebrate every day.

>> The power of authenticity is me coming in here with a clean face, understanding that it is transparency that will allow everything that you are passionate about, everything you do care about that comes across genuinely.

And I think authenticity is it is one of my core values now, being raised as a chameleon, army brat, traveling the world, trying to fit in with everything and everyone, I realize that authentically, that kind of rubbed against me the wrong way.

>> I am hopeful that at some point we will not listen to the messages that tell us that we are less than, we will listen to our message knowing that once we come, that we are strong and all the things that they tell us we are not.

>> So Ill Seven, is an artist name that I first started going by years ago.

And I had so much to do with my kind of spiritual journey.

Another name I go by is Acuña Black and was really kind of a self-discovery of me going through my own lineage of being Afro Latino, my dad's side of the family being from Haiti, my mom's side of the family being from Mexico, I have utilized I feel like my art to like kind of tell my own story, but also highlight some of the struggles that we have all gone through as people of color.

♪ [Music] >> I moved here six years ago, and I just saw something really unique about Denver's black community.

First there weren't many of us, but I also noticed a lot of people just unique and powerful and that thing was people being themselves.

And I really wanted to capture that and understand what I was seeing and what I was experiencing, and document this beautiful community that I had discovered here.

I always say I am an old soul, and a body and then I get really deep with it and say my body will someday become the earth.

So I know that I'm a soul right?

I know that I am many things, and my community and the community that I've created allows me to be all of those things.

I know that I am ever changing.

>> That's one of the things about being Black in Denver is that it's always kind redefining itself because there isn't a strong community so like there is more openness to explore what that is, and I think that this project kind of highlights that like we are kind of a little different, a little quirky, a little not like anywhere else.

>> Having healthy relationships, having a grounded sense of self, and self-worth are all the things that Blacks suffer with and of course it is due to a lot of the ways we are socialized, it is due to inequities that we are constantly faced with, and over time, that affects your being, your mental well-being, your spiritual well-being.

How you show up emotionally.

>> Being Black in Denver is an interesting thing because it's not like anywhere else.

It is the Wild West.

Meaning that it is open, and there is not set a narrative necessarily in Denver where if you go to New York or you go to LA, there's already an expectation of how you should move or act.

I feel like Denver's kind of undefined in a variety of different ways.

So because it is undefined, you as a creator can create the reality that you want to exist within the city and a variety of different ways.

And as long as you do not get overcome with all of these little microaggressions and the stigmas people put on you, then you can actually define the reality of what Denver is for yourself.

>> Right away I want to form a community, I'm like how do I sort of plant myself in this community, that does not have many black people at all, how do I become a presence there, how do I create change there, and how do I bring other people that will look like me into the community and that is why I started my magazine Cherry Creek Fashion and it has been successful in doing that, now people see me as a face of Cherry Creek and they feel comfortable saying well Esther is there, she lives there and works there, I can be there too.

So representation matters so very much especially to kids, like I have a five-year-old now, and you know the same phrase, like if you can't see it, you do not think you can be it.

Like when I see oh my gosh, Michelle Obama on the national television, I go I can do that too.

It just encourages you to want to do more and know that you can be that person as well.

And also, I love you know, normally my hair's in a huge Afro and I love walking around Cherry Creek because any other black person visiting, I want them to know that's their community too.

>> My art is definitely a way to help other black people heal.

I think that I allow black people into the space to cry, and laugh, and question these things that are a part of our culture and that form or structure the way we respond to our environments.

I think for me, I have removed myself more and more from the work and look at my surroundings as my subject.

>> I own Urban Sanctuary which is a wellness and health center, we do yoga and healing work.

So I put together programs to help the BIPOC community so my session is all BIPOC, individuals can come and see me, it's on the sliding scale.

So having BIPOC only spaces is just being in the community where you do not feel like you stand out.

You don't feel like everybody is looking at you, you do not feel out of place.

So I practice yoga in Fort Collins and Denver and that's one thing I noticed as I was the only black person in class and you do feel it, you see it, people interact with you differently.

So just to have a BIPOC class only just allows people to just settle in and be themselves and to connect with the teacher and connect with their body on a level that feels familiar to them.

>> Here in looking at it, it's very spread out, very disconnected, but when we connect, magic happens.

That's how I feel.

>> We are always becoming, right?

I think it's an ever evolving journey to self.

And I think that this project helped me put me on a path where I'm supposed to be going.

But I think that I am still walking that path.

♪ [Music] >> My purpose here is to tell stories.

My purpose here is to lift up narratives of this community, it is to embrace and disrupt harmful stereotypes.

>> I would say I am a unique Denver native, as every person breathing is unique in their ways.

And who I am right now, is a culmination of experience and education and love.

>> I think in America, the sad part has been that the roles of black people basically have been like either you're some sort of freedom fighter like MLK, or you are an athlete, or you are rapper or musician, or you are I don't know what else, maybe those are the main ones.

And so I think for people to understand that there is a plurality of blackness, and I meet black people all the time where I am like we have an understanding and I love that, and there are so many things about you that I will never understand and I think that's beautiful.

>> There is no such thing as can't.

And I really do believe that, I may not be able to do it that way, however I can figure out a way to do it.

And saying can't disempowers, and it is important for me to stay strong in my power I enjoy being a strong powerful black woman.

>> We are people who are survivors, we know how to struggle and how to overcome.

Make do out of nothing, and that is a huge lesson that a lot of people have to learn.

Our biggest challenge today is how to thrive in the midst of that, instead of just surviving.

In Denver, Denver is a real challenge, there's a lot of challenges for us as a people, but we are overcoming and we have achieved far greater than our numbers.

>> I resent that as African people, brought to this country, that we more than any other culture have been so deprived of who we are.

We are powerful people, we are strong, intelligent people.

But we were deprived of our history, we have been deprived of our language.

We did not all speak the same language when we came here.

We have been deprived of everything that made us us.

>> I think my work is very much exploring sanctuary, and home, as a means of foundation, thinking about belonging specifically.

And being safe.

And what does that look like?

Being black in Denver has allowed me to shed that skin, literally, and find those moments that I appreciate myself, that I appreciate my culture, that I connect to my culture.

I add to my culture.

>> It is much bigger than me.

It is a community project and that is why I love participatory art and art that involves people and their voices.

>> I will show the words that I shared with them.

Street alchemy, our streetlights came on while holding down this progress of evolution, the young bloods of Yahweh created a new reality.

While refusing to be casualty, actually alchemy, converted pain into platinum, you all call it rapping the key to the shackles we were trapped in.

Manifestation gained traction, we put love into action, stopped acting and started a chain reaction.

Hanging with stars, moonwalking like Michael Jackson, filtered the old ideas into new realities, yeah, will never lose.

You will light the fuse.

Hard life is a muse, turning pain into platinum, that's called alchemy in action.