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#DAYONESART POP-UPS ARTIST CALL #DAYONESART Collabs 2021: A Divergent 2020: 482 #DAYONESART SILENT AUCTION
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Since Day One

The Black Utopian Fellowship is an incubator Fellowship created by #DayonesArt in collaboration with Culture Push. The BUF is a year-long Fellowship for Black artists, researchers, scientists and inventors, with career development and mentorship through a connection with Black-run institutions. The intent of the Black Utopian Fellowship is to share resources and support social engagement, educational programming, and revitalization of communal hubs.

We will be accepting proposals for projects that are direct instances of Research, Health, Design, and Social interest in regards to Black Futures. (Please look at the links above to get a sense of the types of projects that could be included in “Black Utopian Fellowship: Rituals Re-Imagined.”)  As with our other Fellowships, the Black Utopian Fellow is supported with all the resources of the Fellowship for Utopian Practice for one full year.

The Fellowship for Utopian Practice is a testing ground for untested and new ideas that aim to create positive social change through civic engagement and horizontal learning opportunities. Through the Fellowship for Utopian Practice, Culture Push serves artists by providing creative, analytical, and logistical tools in the creation of truly transformative projects. Pre-existing performances, established projects, and fully funded works are not eligible to apply. Learn more about our Guidelines, and how to apply here.

The Fellowship program is open to Black artists and other professionals working in any discipline who wish to expand the boundaries of their practice. Applicants are encouraged to review our organization’s mission before submitting materials as well as the specific nature of this Open Call. We will award The Black Utopian Fellowship to one applicant. 

APPLICATIONS ARE OPEN!

Life in Action, Legacy in Motion

This year our Black Utopian Fellowship centers the pedagogy of legacy. We invite artists, researchers, scientists, inventors, farmers, architects, economists, educators, culture bearers and creative people of all kinds to propose projects that explore how legacy is taught, inherited, and reimagined.

We welcome projects that reflect the stories, practices, and knowledge we carry; and the ways they are preserved, challenged, and transformed across generations. At its heart, this theme asks: How do we pass down and protect wisdom? How do we teach and learn from what came before? And how might we shape legacies for the futures we dream of?”

APPLY HERE

Applications are due Sunday, Oct 5th, 2025 at 11:59 PM ET.

Any questions should be addressed to buf@culturepush.org with the subject line “Black Utopian Fellowship Question”

The Black Utopian Fellowship is supported in part by the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs.

2024 - 2025 Fellows

Camille Mbayo

Camille-Louise “Cam” Kouba Mbayo (she, they, we) is a queer Congolese-born Brooklyn-based abolitionist, abortion doula, nerd-artist, daughter, sister, friend, process becoming. Cam is committed to living fully in the present moment and believes there is an artistry in that. With the engineering tools they’ve acquired through academia and their Indig enous knowledge systems Cam works at the intersection of art, tech, culture, and education.

Living themselves at the intersection of many identities, as they continue to figure out their place in the world and their relationship to land, belonging, and being good kin, they are learning how to build communities rooted in love, care, and right relationships. In the making of those communities, Cam is interested in exploring art as a portal to different futures.

Learn More Here

 

Aiyo Cheboi 

PROJECT: THE EXPERIMENTAL FOOD LAB

Aiyo Cheboi (they/them) is a Black, genderqueer human seeking to nurture interpersonal connections via courageous and tender exchanges of knowledge. They are also an experimental artist / educator nestled within an ecosystem of bio art, cooking + food systems, physical computation + code, and research about regenerative technologies. Spiritually and politically, they’re committed to nurturing individual + collective expressions of imagination.

Learn More Here

Fall 2023 - 2024 Ongoing Fellow Nifemi Ogunro

As a Nigerian American designer, Nifemi Ogunro bridges the gap between design, social issues, and sustainability.  Nifemi use’s photography and performance as a way to articulate this work. Nifemi designs functional sculptures.

PROJECT : A Place I Biked Past Once

PROJECT : MELD

Much of my practice revolves around feeling and questioning. Why does a chair have to look like a chair? Why do objects for children have to signal that they’re for children? Why do tools for healing have to expose an injury rather than add beauty to it? For the Fellowship for Utopian Practice I aim to reimagine what a playground can look like, what it means to create a public space for both play and rest, and explore if that space can also feel like its own work of art.

website - https://nifemiogunro.com/

In collaboration with movement artist Coco Villa, Nifemi Ogunro will be leading a movement/building workshop. The workshop will begin with intros and sharing process updates of Ogunro's project. Then the recorded workshop will enter the movement portion led by Coco, continuing with watching the forms our bodies created then ending with drawings and building a singular object together.

BLS Program 2023

“Coming in Stories: Conversations w/ Black LGBTQ Elders in Harlem” is a project focused on conducting interviews of Black LGBTQ elders in Harlem. The goal is to have them share their stories of  coming into themselves, what that felt like and what that looked like. - Yanni Young

BLS Vol. 1 - Zine Here

ReCap: Let’s Talk Nia Artist Talk 2022

Let’s Talk Nia, is an annual meet and greet with the Black Utopian Fellows past and incoming fellows - introducing their practice, speaking about their projects and expressing their ideas in regards to purpose.  This artist talk takes place during the week of our annual Kwanzaa Krush Fundraiser. To see the full unedited talk please reach out to dayonesart@gmail.com as this talk is not available to the public.

Past Fellows

 

Fall 2022

Yanni Young

Yanni Young is a Black, queer, multi-disciplinary artist born and raised in Harlem, NYC. Yanni grew up performing in plays, musicals, played piano for five years and attended a performing arts high school as a vocal major. Other mediums that Yanni has explored have been podcasting as well as documentary filmmaking. For two years Yanni had a podcast called "Soul Rebel Podcast" centering Black artists, healers, and grassroots organizers, allowing them to speak on their work and their life journey that led to where they are in the present. They currently intern for a Black jewelry brand based in Brooklyn by the name of Heavy Metals NYC. Yanni is also an administrative assistant and teaching artist with the LEAP program of NYC in Brooklyn.

“Coming in Stories: Conversations w/ Black LGBTQ Elders in Harlem” is a project focused on conducting interviews of Black LGBTQ elders in Harlem. The goal is to have them share their stories of  coming into themselves, what that felt like and what that looked like.



Fall 2021

ANN BENNETT

Ann Bennett is an Emmy-nominated documentary filmmaker, multimedia producer, and teaching artist who has devoted her career to telling diverse stories through film, television, interactive projects, museum installations, and live events. She produced the NAACP Image Award–winning documentary Through a Lens Darkly: Black Photographers and the Emergence of a People, as well as the multi-platform community engagement initiative “Digital Diaspora Family Reunion.”' Ann is currently producer on the feature-length documentary RAZING LIBERTY SQUARE about Climate Gentrification in Miami, Florida. Bennett’s past film credits include Citizen King and Fisk Jubilee Singers for the PBS series American Experience, Hymn for Alvin Ailey for Dance in America and the award-winning PBS miniseries Africans in America. Bennett holds a master’s degree from the Columbia Journalism School and graduated from Harvard College with a degree in Visual and Environmental Studies. She has won several fellowships, including a Logan Nonfiction Fellowship, an Impact Partners Documentary Producers Fellowship, Laundromat Project Create Change Fellowship and is currently a 2021/22 Sundance Institute Producing Fellow. Bennett’s multi-platform projects explore the nexus of history, culture, and technology within multicultural communities.

Her Project is LINEAGE LAUNCHPAD © - ANCESTORS’ TONIC

Learn more
 

Fall 2020

Dennis Redmoon Darkeem

Dennis RedMoon Darkeem is inspired to create artwork based on the familiar objects he views through his daily travels. He discovers elements in existing architecture and among everyday items found within the home. Darkeem ultimately set out to express a meaningful story about events in his life and the lives of people in the communities where he lives and works. Darkeem utilizes multiple mediums in his work. This creates a rich viewer experience as the eye uncovers the multiple layers.

Since starting his work as a professional interdisciplinary artist in the early 2000s, it has evolved into critiquing social and political issues affecting Indigenous & All black people . Much of Darkeem’s art has focused on issues like institutionalized racism and classism, jarring stereotypes, and the displacement of people of color.

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His project is PROJECT: MEN OF COLOR HEALING ARTS CENTER

Learn more