Play†Prey: A conversation with Leila Weefur & Susan Stryker

Thursday, December 2, 2021 | 5:00 PM PDT
Presented by We Are The Voices and the Mills College Trans Studies Speaker Series.

Click image to view recording:
Black and White photos of the speakers faces are close cropped. Leila's face framed by curls, Susan looking out of frame to the left, through glasses. An abstract pink image of clouds and hands in purple reaching up frame the photos. Design By Joshua Zubniga, Photos courtesy of the Lelia Weefur and Susan Stryker, respectively.

Oakland-based artist, curator, and writer Leila Weefur will be in conversation with Susan Stryker about Weefur's interdisciplinary work including the upcoming project PLAY†PREY, a gospel presented as a multi-channel film experience, that recounts a relationship between God, the Church, and a queer Black child. 

Bio

Leila Weefur (He/They/She) is an artist, writer, and curator based in Oakland, CA. Through video and installation, their interdisciplinary practice examines the performativity intrinsic to systems of belonging. The work brings together concepts of sensorial memory, abject Blackness, hyper surveillance, and the erotic. Weefur is a recipient of the Walter & Elise Haas Creative Work Fund and the MSP California Black Voices Project. Weefur has worked with local and national institutions including The Wattis Institute, McEvoy Foundation, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, SFMOMA, Museum of the African Diaspora, and Smack Mellon. Weefur’s writing has been published in SEEN by BlackStar Productions, Sming Sming Books, Baest Journal, and more. Weefur is a lecturer at Stanford University. Their latest exhibition PLAY†PREY is featured in two parts: PLAY†PREY: The Old Testament is on view at Telematic Media Arts, October 9 - December 11; PLAY†PREY: A Gospel is on view at Minnesota Street Projects, October 16 - December 10.

We Are The Voices is a Mellon Foundation Higher Learning funded project linking Mills College students and faculty with poets and scholars working in Oakland and beyond.

The Mills College Trans Studies Speakers Series, hosted by Emmy-Award winner Susan Stryker, Barbara Lee Distinguished Visiting Professor in Women's Leadership, offers a regular public forum for exploring transgender issues with some of today's leading thinkers, artists, and activists.

Questions? Email TransSpeakerSeries@mills.edu.

Mills College Trans Studies Speaker Series logo featuring an absrtract graphic with bright red lips outlining an eye with a hazel iris and inside that a blue and pink eye and center a revolutionary fist raised.We Are The Voices logo with the initials in blue and name spelled out in smaller gold type to the right.