jupiter.magazine

Black art criticism is alive and well🔏 We closed out Art Basel Miami Beach the only way we know how: honoring the lineage of Black art critics who, through their insurgency and tenacity, have made our work with Jupiter more possible. We sat down with our dear mentors, friends, and collaborators, Jessica Lynne and Taylor Renee Aldridge, to celebrate the 10 year anniversary of the arts criticism journal they co-founded, ARTS.BLACK. One of the first of its kind, ARTS.BLACK has published criticism exclusively from Black perspectives for the past decade, becoming home to the rigorous, creative, and spellbinding writing that Jessica and Taylor sought to champion. We extend a heartfelt thank you to everyone who was able to join us for this vibrant ceremony and conversation, wide appreciation to @artnoirco for co-hosting and @therabkinfoundation for their support, big love to @_bre_johnson for hitting our angles, and boundless gratitude to our gracious hosts at @thecarterprojectmiami💐

while researching for ISSUE 004: OF PROPHECY, we spent time in the corners of Octavia E. Butler’s life and want to share glances at the anecdotal wonder we found around the bend with you… Butler’s conscious inhabitation of her writing life began at age 9 when she saw the film ‘Devil Girl from Mars.’ she recalls thinking to herself: “geez, I can write a better story than that,” and so commenced her enduring love affair with science fiction and the act of spelling new worlds into being by way of her pen we adore the quiet hubris of this young girl named Octavia, armed already at 9 years old with a full belief in the wingspan of her own imagination and an insistance that she could advance the literary landscape she inherited as ever (in orbit), Camille & Daria p.s. if any archival wizards out there know the provenance and lore behind this photo, reach out as inquiring minds want to know

🪐 ISSUE 004: OF PROPHECY (after Octavia E. Butler) 🪐 featuring Imani Perry, Amandine Nana, Rhya Marlene Moffitt, Angelique Rosales Salgado, Rikki Byrd and us (Camille Bacon & Daria Simone Harper) available now via our website enduringly (in orbit), Camille & Daria

Octavia E. Butler in conversation with Charlie Rose, June 2000 a searingly clear critique for then and for now from our oracle, our prophet, our fortune teller 🤲🏽 in lineage with Butler, we write altars to all life and, in chorus with @idealblackfemale, recall that “critique holds fascism as its enemy.” onward (in orbit and in rage and in magnificent possibility), Camille & Daria

a couple months ago our beloved sister-writer (@tembae) asked us on a date & obviously we (immediately) said YES ! we talked all things “books, breakups and sex scenes” — she made us read a little section from her novel-in-progress, which is sure to leave all of us undone in the best way read about our date via the link you know where (also, she offered us a prompt in the days after that we’re still awash in & living our way towards the answer(s) to: “say I love you without saying I love you”) enduringly (in orbit), Camille & Daria

“Jupiter Magazine is a linguistic atmosphere that is rooted in spirit, regards and reveres the legitimacy of divinely-derived knowledge, and functions as a mode of cosmic catharsis.” With a manifesto shot on super 8 and ISSUE 003: A THEATRE OF REFUSAL available online now, Jupiter Magazine is using trans-dsiciplinary approaches to cast spells rooted in the Black feminist tradition. Helmed by Camille Bacon (@camillegbacon) and Daria Harper (@dariasimoneharper), Jupiter gives readers tools to catalyze healing and develop their role as “active architects in the world they wish to inhabit.” Critical Minded is proud to be a partner in this community’s continued growth. Reimagine the universe with Jupiter at the link in their bio 👉🏾 @jupiter.magazine Super 8 Footage Directed, Shot, & Edited by josh brainin (@joshbrainin). Composed by Immanuel Wilkins (@immanuel.wilkins). Saxophone, Piano, Synthesizer by Immanuel Wilkins. Cello & SFX by Lester St. Louis (@lesterst.louis). Vocals by Ekep Nkwelle (@ekepnkwelle). Drums & Percussion by Kweku Sumbry (@kwe.drums). Produced by Jupiter Magazine.

Join us on September 28, 6-8:30 for a screening of Brigett M. Davis’ ‘NAKED ACTS’ (1996) followed by a discussion between Brigett, Maya Cade and Camille Bacon around the film’s resurgence and the broader ethic of stewarding, safe-guarding, and serving an audience for Black women’s creative pursuits across generations. Tickets are available via our bio ! 🖤 🎥 ‘NAKED ACTS’ follows Cece (Jake-Ann Jones), an aspiring actress and daughter of former Blaxploitation star, Lydia Love, as she is cast in her first major role. In a confrontation with her mother, CeCe proclaims her desire to play “tasteful” roles, unlike those she witnessed Lydia play. As she grapples with the cost of her desire to embody characters with expansive interiority on the screen, the budding star quickly learns she can’t escape her insecurities—until she learns to contend with her own selfhood. After seeing Chicagoan Yvonne Welbon’s 2003 documentary SISTERS IN CINEMA, which featured Brigett among other Black women filmmakers, Maya fervently sought out ‘NAKED ACTS’ in the Black Film Center Archive at Indiana University. As the audacious film went undistributed during initial screenings, Maya messaged Brigett on Twitter to ask if she wanted to explore wider, albeit belated, distribution. After Brigett agreed, Maya sent it to Milestone Films, advocated for its importance, and ‘NAKED ACTS’ was (re)released. Cade’s resuscitation of the film extends the enduring legacy of Black women’s intergenerational caretaking in the arts, perhaps most famously embodied by Alice Walker’s rediscovery of Zora Neale Hurston’s ‘Their Eyes Were Watching God.’

we set ISSUE 003: THE THEATER OF REFUSAL into motion with the help of our New York family on June 8, 2024 we hosted ‘Embodied Poetics’: a movement and writing workshop rooted in the enduring wisdom of Lucille Clifton’s poem ‘Message from the Ones (received in the late 70’s)’ aimed at unearthing unexplored corners of the self, we engaged in collective movement facilitated by Aimee Meredith Cox (@aimee_mere), followed by a writing session which allowed us to approach the page from a place of deeply honed and intentional embodiment to close, Yusuf of BlackMass Publishing (@blackmasspublishing) assisted us in binding a zine containing lines our collective reflections on the convening massive thank you to @adanne.co for hosting us ! enduringly (in orbit), Daria

our first dispatch from ISSUE 003: THE THEATER OF REFUSAL celebrates a 312 / 313 love story in the making on July 6, 2024 we gathered in Detroit for ‘Precious About Print’: a full day of programming organized in collaboration with @blackartlibrary, @periodicals__shop & @aaprintandpublishing that explored the sanctity of printed materials like books, zines, and magazines with participants hailing from both sides of the Mississippi River, each end of the Atlantic and aged 8-87, we explored together how engaging with print materials can catalyze a turn to tenderness, deepened the dialogue between Chicago and Detroit’s respective legacies of independent Black literary and artistic production, and delighted in archival materials from the Johnson Publishing Company, Broadside Press, and other vintage text-based materials from the personal libraries of our collaborators. and, of course, in true Motor City fashion, we danced the night away to sets by @kesswa_, @saylemceleste, @zoetalley & @kemkemlij… thank you to everyone who blessed the program with their presence & see you again (very) soon, Detroit enduringly (in orbit), Camille photograph by: @1000000000devwill drip by: @shoplito.co

Chicago, join us for ‘Black Entanglements,’ our second film screening series presented in collaboration with @blackfilmclubchi & @blancgallerychicago (via Parkway Picture Show) 🪐 here, we draw from Maya Cade’s (@mayasymonecade) research around tenderness in Black film to consider how the kaleidoscopic nature of sisterly, romantic, and spiritual intimacies are manifested cinematically each screening will begin with an offering of lyrical responses and questions by Prof. AE Stevenson (@negressoftheyear) and Denny Mwaura (@d.mutungi) consider as you watch click the link in our bio to RSVP and read more about the curatorial ethos for the program ! we can’t wait to kick back with you 🫶🏽 enduringly (in orbit), Camille & Daria flyers designed by: @bougieboybash

📍Dekalb Ave and Kent Ave 📍Myrtle Ave and Washington Ave 📍Walker St and Broadway 📍Willoughby Ave and Taaffe Pl wheat paste posters designed by @bougieboybash

🪐 ISSUE 003: THE THEATER OF REFUSAL 🪐 titled after and conceptually grounded in a 1993 exhibition curated by artist Charles Gaines, our latest issue will unfold out in the open through a series of public programs in our anchor cities of Chicago and New York, as well as Detroit and Los Angeles—our midwestern and coastal kin this experi(mental/ential) issue provides a terrain on which to rearticulate Gaines’s mood of skepticism around traditional forms of arts writing and honor, in the now, the Black penchant for enacting cultural criticism beyond the page (think: the kitchen table / 135th and Lennox / Black Twitter / the cookout and church pews / the block, the bus stop, the barbershop, etc.) such that we may improvise together toward refracted understandings of who we imagine as “critics,” what we denote as “criticism,” and in what locales we presume this work takes place 🪐 thank you to our collaborators for stretching into this riff with us… New York: @blackmasspublishing / @aimee_mere / @uglyfendi / @adanne.co Los Angeles: @taylorraldridge / @reparations.club Detroit: @blackartlibrary / @periodicals__shop / @aaprintandpublishing Chicago: @ireon.jpg / @vicmusoni / @artspubliclife / @d.mutungi / @negressoftheyear / @blancgallerychicago / @blackfilmclubchi explore the full line up & program descriptions via our website enduringly (in orbit), Camille & Daria