Panel: Collective Ownership & Anti-Displacement Models

This session explores different scales of collective ownership, anti-displacement, and cultural preservation models from yəhaw̓ Indigenous Creatives Collective, Wa Na Wari, and Africatown. Panelists discuss community ownership of arts spaces, economic opportunity, and housing.

Panelists:

Inye Wokoma (he/him), Wa Na Wari

Inye Wokoma is an award-winning journalist, filmmaker and visual artist who explores the intersections of our political economies and shared histories through the lens of personal narratives. His work is rooted in the neighborhood he grew up in, Seattle’s Central District where his family has lived since the 1940s. For the past thirteen years he has been working on an evolving multi-disciplinary body of work entitled ‘An Elegant Utility’. It includes film, photography, conceptual and social practice art, museum installations, and art-driven land and housing justice activism (‘artivism’). Inye is a co-founder of the Seattle Black art center, Wa Na Wari. The Frank and Goldyne Green Cultural Land Conservancy is the latest iteration of this intersection of purpose-driven community ‘artivism’.

Curtiss Calhoun (he/him), Africatown Community Land Trust/Black Dot

Curtiss R. Calhoun (he/him) is a Seattle native. He graduated from Grover Cleveland High School and attended Seattle Central College when it was still a Community College. Curtiss is a Project Manager with the Africatown Central District Preservation and Development Association, as well as a Community Manager at Black Dot Underground a small business incubator/co-working space in Seattle’s historic Central District. Curtiss facilitates a weekly Business Mastermind group called Black Dot Mastermind Mondays. Curtiss is also a Certified Transformational Coach. He is the Head Coach and Founder Curtiss Calhoun Coaching & Consulting a Seattle based coaching and consulting firm.

Kimberly Deriana (she/her), yəhaw̓ Indigenous Creatives Collective

Kimberly Corinne Deriana is a Mandan and Hidatsa architectural designer and artist who specializes in sustainable, environmental, Indigenous architecture, housing, and planning. Her design methodologies focus on incorporating Indigenous lifestyle practices in relationship to past and present: design for seven generations. Deriana strives to achieve exceptional design by weaving together respect for individuality, honor for cultural identity, and appreciation for contemporary quality, manifested in the shape and structure of sustainable buildings and communities. Deriana created the Brings the Medicine Sundial at King Street Station in 2019, and joined the yəhaw̓ board of directors in 2021.

Panel Moderator: Patty Julio (she/her), Julio Consulting LLC

Patricia brings 20 years of experience in neighborhood planning and community development, with a focus on communities of color and affordable housing. She began her career as a LISC AmeriCorps Member and was a real estate developer and project manager with the King County Housing Authority and Southeast Effective Development, working on projects in the Rainier Valley, White Center and south King County. Patricia has held leadership roles in mission driven nonprofits such as the White Center Community Development Association and Habitat for Humanity Seattle-King County. Her career took her to the highlands of northern Ethiopia where she was as an urban planning lecturer at Mekelle University, and to the Caribbean jungle where she supported micro-entrepreneurs with Luker Chocolate, Colombia's oldest national chocolate production corporation. Currently, Patricia is principal of her own community-driven development consulting