Kiini
Ibura
Salaam
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Kiini Ibura Salaam is a writer, painter, and traveler from New Orleans, Louisiana. The middle child of five, she grew up in a hardscrabble neighborhood with oak and fig trees, locusts and mosquitoes, cousins and neighbors. Kiini's work delves into spheres of human liberation, human connection, and evolution. She employs speculative fiction, erotica, and creative nonfiction to take readers through mind-bending journeys into the transcendent, the sensual, the mystical, and the fantastic.
Culture
NonfictionEssayExcerptCulture // Musings // Race
Race: A discussion in 10 parts plus a few moments of unsubstantiated theory and one inarguable fact…
Posted on 4 December 2012
1. Race is bullshit. A meaningless line drawn in sand by men bent on world domination and oppression. It was introduced as a fixed notion, an unchangeable, undeniable fact of world order. Yet from the moment of race’s conception, the amazing diversity of body types, cultures, and traditions on the African continent alone complicated race’s… »
BlogKIS.list9th Ward // Anne Rice // Culture // history // hurricane // injustice // Katrina // New Orleans // Race
Vol. 51, New Orleans Underwater
Posted on 20 September 2005
Oaxaca, Mexico It is 4 in the morning and it is rainy season in Oaxaca. Everyday around 5 p.m. the sky opens up and it pours. Sometimes it stops. Sometimes it goes on and on until at some point in the morning you are awakened by the sound of water on your roof and you… »
BlogKIS.listAmazon fish // Aquarium // Cubans in Mexico // Culture // Mexico // pinatas // Race // rejections // ruins // travel
Vol. 47, In Mexico: Vera Cruz
Posted on 10 March 2005
Vera Cruz, Mexico I am on my first writing trip ever since my daughter’s birth two years ago. I am proud to say I have been able to maintain my “schedule” of leaving NYC for the winter every other year even as a mom. I will be in Mexico for three months, but I am… »
BlogKIS.listafoxe // angola // Bahia // beauty // blackness // capoeira // cultural conflict // Culture // filhos de ghandy // Fort Santo Antonio // gender // gilberto gil // hiking // Ile Aiye // Lencois // life in the tropics // nature // regional // roda // Salvador // sexual tourism // tourism // travel
Vol. 20, In Brazil: Ilê Aiyê and Tourist-Native Relationships
Posted on 22 February 2002
Salvador, Bahia Brazil I’m not a person who “keeps house,” but here, as in many warm places, the necessities for cleaning are multiplied. With so many openings to the homes—balconies, wall openings for ventilation, windows without screens—dirt easily comes in and settles on the floor. Floors need to be swept almost daily. With the presence… »
BlogKIS.listafoxe // Bahia // beach food // blackness // bloco // body image // Brazil // bus travel // carnival // Cidade Baixa // crowds // cultural conflict // Culture // Ile Aiye // images of beauty // immigration // international // Ladeira // Mercado Modelo // Olodum // Pelourinho // prostitution // Race // Santo Antonio // self hatred // sexual tourism // street children // tourism // travel // trucks // violence
Vol. 19, In Brazil: Carnival Time
Posted on 14 February 2002
Salvador, Bahia Brazil [The doorbell just rang. Went to the balcony and a woman was below with her child. She asked about the woman—the rasta, as she calls her—who used to live here. The rasta used to give her food for her and her family. I told her she wasn’t here, she asked me for… »
BlogKIS.listacceptance // Basquiat // Bronx Museum of Art // Carl Hancock Rux // Carlos Esteves // commodity // context in art // Culture // Dario Robleto // Fernando Rodriguez // Francisco de la Cal // hip hop // interpreting art // Keith Haring // kiini // Kiini Ibura Salaam // Kori Newkirk // Mel Chin // One Planet Under a Groove: Hip Hop and Contemporary Art // value of art // visual art // Whitney // Won't be no Black Male show today
Vol. 14, Visual Art
Posted on 12 December 2001
Bronx Museum of the Arts Bronx, NY Webster’s II New Riverside Dictionary (which is the only dictionary I can get my hand on at the moment) defines “art” as: 1. Creative or imaginative activity, esp. the expressive arrangement of elements within a medium 2. Works, as paintings, that result from this creativity. Now it’s intriguing… »
BlogKIS.listCaribbean // carnival // Culture // Eastern Parkway // j'ouvert // Kiini Ibura Salaam // KIS.list // Labor Day // Manhattan Beach // Sheepshead Bay // soca // travel
Vol. 5, The Science of Carnival
Posted on 10 September 2001
Carnival/Labor Day Celebrations Brooklyn, NY My girlfriend Vanessa Richards and I have done Carnival together in three countries: Notting Hill Carnival in London, Brooklyn’s Labor Day festivities and, of course, Trinidad’s Carnival. What amazes me about Carnival, besides the freedom and lawlessness of it, is the Science of it. There’s so many elements to the… »