Lit Fest Fêtes A Century Of Baldwin
- Lucy Gellman
- Oct 7, 2024
- 3 min read
October 7th, 2024
Originally posted on the Arts Council Arts Paper
Article and Photos by Lucy Gellman
Just off Winchester Avenue, ConnCAT was coming to life. In a conference room upstairs, 8-year-old Egypt Robinson grabbed a magic marker and filled in the blue and yellow tips of a star, guided by the words of a literary luminary. Down the hall, Dexter Singleton wove through seven decades of Black literature, tying James Baldwin to Lorraine Hansberry, Aleshea Harris, Lynn Nottage and Jackie Sibblies Drury.
In the parking lot outside, poet Yex Diaz prepared to walk onto a stage, and transform the sprawling parking lot into hallowed ground. Beneath a nearby tent, author Barbara McClane looked up, and waited for the first words to drop.
Authors, artmakers, academics, activists, and avid readers came together Saturday, for the fifth annual Kulturally LIT Fest (formerly Elm City LIT Fest), celebrating writer, activist and intellectual James Baldwin on what would have been his hundredth birthday. Held at the Connecticut Center for Arts & Technology (ConnCAT) for the first time in its history, the festival lifted up Baldwin's long legacy, from his cutting and prescient critique of America to how to teach his work today.
The fest is part of The Year of Baldwin, a months-long centennial celebration that also includes Baldwin reading groups and book clubs, film screenings, poetry readings, theater performances and over a dozen community collaborators. Read more about that here and here.
"I feel like we have evolved—it's more enriching every year," said Kulturally LIT Founder IfeMichelle Gardin, who has grown the festival from a fledgling idea and neighborhood book club to an annual cultural event. "To have it at ConnCAT—this is the dream. I'm so glad it's here."
Around her, the building and parking lot came alive with panels, workshops, performances and vendors, bringing Baldwin out onto Winchester Avenue and into a space that has become a haven for young Black artists. As panelists gathered to revisit Baldwin's female characters in one room, artists Jasmine Nikole and Empress Arce set up shop in another, laying several of Baldwin's words out on bright, neon-colored index cards.
"Colour is not a human or a personal reality; it is a political reality," read one flashcard on the table, taking it back to Baldwin's The Fire Next Time. "Do I really want to be integrated into a burning house?," read another.
As they welcomed pint-sized attendees and parents alike into the space, both artists said they were excited to be there. When Gardin first reached out to Nikole and Arce about the festival, they designed a series of crafts that allowed people to engage with Baldwin's words, from bookmark making to small wooden signs that they could color and decorate.
Egypt, who is currently on a six-pointed star (and, she said, Elephant & Piggie) kick, gravitated towards a set of magic markers and got to work.
"James Baldwin has a special place in my heart," Arce said, adding that their favorite works are If Beale Street Could Talk and Baldwin’s essay, The Fire Next Time. "His books really speak to me—they make me feel like I'm not alone."
Baldwin's spirit was guiding them Saturday, they added. "When I do something for the next generation, it makes me feel like he's with me."
Comments