Niama Sandy

Activist, Artist, Connector, Consultant, Educator/Teacher, Foodie, Idea generator, Musician, Performer, Producer, Writer/Editor

Niama Safia Sandy is a New York-based cultural anthropologist, curator, producer and multidisciplinary artist. Niama’s creative practice delves into the human story - through the application and critical lenses of culture, healing, history, migration, music, race and ritual. She sees her role as that of an agitator - one who endeavors to simultaneously call into question and make sense of the seemingly arbitrary nature of modern life and to celebrate our shared humanity in the process. Sandy is fascinated by the ways in which history, economics, migration and other social forces and constructs have shaped culture and identity. Her aim is to leverage history, the visual, written and performative arts, chiefly those of the Global Black Diaspora, to tell stories we know in ways we have not yet thought to tell them and to lift us all to a higher state of historical, ontological and spiritual wholeness in the process. Sandy is a co-founder of The Blacksmiths, a coalition forging support for Black liberation against anti-Black racism and its manifestations in the academy and at cultural institutions on the global stage. Niama is a member of the Resistance Revival Chorus, a group of women and non-binary identifying musicians bringing song to life in the spirit of activism, collective joy and resistance. She is also an active member of the Wide Awakes, an international open-source network of artists and creatives radically reimagining the future through creative collaboration. She has presented work, and spoken at art institutions around the world. Niama and her work have been featured in The New York Times, Teen Vogue, The Washington Post, Hyperallergic, OkayAfrica, and more. She has written for outlets including Artsy, Active Cultures LA, and NAD NOW. Niama is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor at Pratt Institute, School of Art.

Art and developing new lenses for vision in the world.

Not only is joy "an act of resistance," as said by poet Toi Derricotte; it is also a portal for future building!

Activism, art education, art history, Contemporary Art, Music

cooking!