Rasheedah Phillips is an American artist, author, community activist and lawyer based in

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...

. She is the creator of The Afrofuturist Affair and, together with Camae Ayewa, the

Black Quantum Futurism Black Quantum Futurism (BQF) is a literary and artistic collective composed of Moor Mother (Camae Ayewa) and Rasheedah Phillips, two queer Black women from and based in Philadelphia. It is also a name for the set of Afrofuturist theoretical framewo ...

multidisciplinary Interdisciplinarity or interdisciplinary studies involves the combination of multiple academic disciplines into one activity (e.g., a research project). It draws knowledge from several other fields like sociology, anthropology, psychology, ec ...

artist collective An artist collective is an initiative that is the result of a group of artists working together, usually under their own management, towards shared aims. The aims of an artist collective can include almost anything that is relevant to the need ...

Art and writing

Rasheedah Phillips founded The Afrofuturist Affair in 2011 to provide a web-based platform and a community for writers of color working in speculative fiction and similar genres. The project contributed to the founding in 2014 of the multidisciplinary

collective, with artist and musician Camae Ayewa. An exhibition of their work was held at Vancouver's Western Front gallery in 2019. Phillips is also an

Afrofuturist Afrofuturism is a cultural aesthetic, and philosophy of science and history that explores the intersection of the African diaspora culture with science and technology. It addresses themes and concerns of the African diaspora through technocultur ...

science fiction author who has written several self-published books, including ''Black Quantum Futurism Theory & Practice, Volume I''.

Legal work and community activism

To Phillips, creative work and community activism are interrelated dimensions of her fight against

racial inequality Social inequality occurs when resources in a given society are distributed unevenly, typically through norms of allocation, that engender specific patterns along lines of socially defined categories of persons. It posses and creates gender c ...

. Phillips graduated from Beasley School of Law at

Temple University Temple University (Temple or TU) is a public state-related research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was founded in 1884 by the Baptist minister Russell Conwell and his congregation Grace Baptist Church of Philadelphia then calle ...

in 2008, notably while working and caring for her small child. The same year, she began working for Community Legal Services in Philadelphia, where she later became Managing Attorney of the Housing Unit. In 2016, Phillips established the Community Futures Lab in the Sharswood-Blumberg neighborhood of

North Philadelphia North Philadelphia, nicknamed North Philly, is a section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is immediately north of Center City. Though the full extent of the region is somewhat vague, "North Philadelphia" is regarded as everything north of either ...

to serve as a community hub and workshop space for residents of the rapidly gentrifying neighborhood. The Lab hosts readings, workshops, a library and facilities for community oral history documentation.

Awards

*2017 Housing Justice Award, National Housing Law Project *2017 City & State Pennsylvania 40 Under 40 Rising Stars *2017 Pew Fellowship (together with Camae Ayewa)

References

External links

Community Futures Lab

The Afrofuturist Affair

Black Quantum Futurism
{{DEFAULTSORT:Phillips, Rasheedah Living people Afrofuturist writers 21st-century African-American lawyers 21st-century American lawyers American science fiction writers American community activists Temple University Beasley School of Law alumni Temple University alumni Year of birth missing (living people)