[Taller] Electric Marronage

Story

WE ARE ELECTRIC

Un taller. A workshop. A site. A collaboration.

A kinship. A call. A response.

e·lec·tric   |   əˈlektrik   |   adjective

  • of, worked by, charged with, or producing electricity.

  • having or producing a sudden sense of thrilling excitement.

synonyms: exciting, charged, electrifying, thrilling, heady, dramatic, intoxicating, dynamic, stimulating, 

galvanizing, rousing, stirring, moving;

 

Marronage refers to the varying states involved in flight and survival.

The name comes from the Spanish cimarron and was originally used of the cattle which escaped into the hills of the island of Hispaniola.

Later the meaning transferred to slaves who escaped into the interior of Hispaniola.

Established in 2018 and revealed in 2020, Taller Electric Marronage (EM) began when a group of Black/Latina queer, writers, and artists decided to plot points across their escape matrix.

Inspired by the petit marronage of our ancestors, we steal away on this electric platform, share our journeys, and offer what we find along the way.

Electric Marronage is a digital site, events, and workshop series that showcases scholarly, political, creative and personal work that engages with themes of fugitivity, escape, survival (inside and outside the academy), “worlds/otherwise,” “Black femme freedom,” and decolonizing diaspora studies.

Created and curated by Yomaira C. Figueroa-Vásquez, Jessica Marie JohnsoN, “electricians”, AND COLLABORATors, EM is a collective bound by four rules of fugitivity: escaping, stealing, feeling, and whatever.

We abscond and reveal.

We build [futures] to which we can return.