A Womb of Violet, Volume II

Project for Empty Space is thrilled to announce the release of A Womb of Violet, Volume II: Blackness, Resistance, and Being, edited and organized by interdisciplinary artist and writer fayemi shakur. This 156pg., Risograph printed art book includes a forward by Dr. Salamishah Tillet and contributions by Amina Baraka, Adebunmi Gbadebo, Ameerah Shabazz-Bilal, Andrea Chung, Antoinette Ellis-Williams, Bimpé Fageyinbo, Dominique Duroseau, K. Eleven Muldrow , K. Desireé Milwood, Jennifer Mack-Watkins, Kween Moore, María Magdalena Campos-Pons, Margie ‘Mia X’ Johnson, Noelle Lorraine Williams, Nell Painter, Shoshanna Weinberger, tarah douglas, Tiana Webb-Evans, Shell Spin, Sundai Johnson, and Walidah Imarisha. 

A Womb of Violet, Volume II will be released as a limited edition of 100 copies and is available to order now. Proceeds from the artbook will be donated to women-led spaces The Shani Baraka Women’s Resource Center, Black Women’s Blueprint, and Project for Empty Space

In the first volume of A Womb of Violet: An Anthology, published in 2019,  the risograph artbook served as a medium to bring together Black women living in Newark to have discussions about the complexity of womanhood and reckoning with self. The second volume unpacks grief, loss, safety, Black joy and pain, and the value of Black lives as women-identified artists. This collection reimagines the possibilities of a Black artist-centered collective amid a global pandemic and continued calls for racial justice and equity.  

This anthology includes poetry, prose, photography, prints, and essays. The works reflect upon Black women’s lived experiences; the ebbs of solitude and isolation; the complexity and simplicity of Black life’s importance; and a cultivation of ideas of a future where Black women thrive.

A Womb of Violet is a project-based collective created by fayemi shakur to honor the work of contemporary Black women writers, poets, and artists and pay homage to Black feminist thinkers. 

“Inspired by earlier Black feminist anthologies, such as Toni Cade Bambara’s The Black Woman (1970), Barbara Smith’s Home Girls (1983), and Beverly Guy-Sheftall's Words of Fire (1995), fayemi wanted that first iteration of A Womb of Violet to reveal on page what it was in spirit: a safe space for Black women to come together and create,” Salamishah Tillet writes in the book’s forward. 

A Womb of Violet: Volume I is in the collections of  The Thomas J. Watson Library at the Metropolitan Museum of ArtThe Newark Public Library, The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University, and the Library of Congress. 

PES’ Story Lab partners with creatives and practitioners to develop printed matter that cultivates discourse around important social justice issues. We aim to promote artists whose work is oriented around social impact and create safe spaces for those artists and their audiences alike.

Womb of Violet, Volume II: Blackness, Resistance, and Being was created with the support of Patricia A. Bell and Nell Painter.