Blooming Underground, a multi-media installation/performance/shrine by artist Mai’a Williams, centers on their relationship to the Driftless natural landscape, the sacredness of Black and First Nations’ lives and histories in this region and globally, the healing traditions that they learned from their grandmother and elders in rural South Carolina.

This work explores questions such as: How do we exist in the face of uncertainty, conflict, trauma, and death? How do we find meaning in crises? How do we rest and celebrate? How do we talk to our ancestors and our children?

Mai’a Williams is an interdisciplinary artist who primarily works in sculpture, performance, installation, poetry and prose. Their studio, curatorial and research-based practice weaves together their identity as a queer Muslim and a daughter of First Nations and Black American lineages, as well as their experience as a midwife and a mother. Their work is a response to revolutionary mothering, global Black death, their African and First Nations ancestry and joy. It is a reflection of living and working with Egyptian, Palestinian, Congolese, and Central American Indigenous mothers in resistance communities for more than 15 years.

The performance is free and the coffeehouse will open at 6 pm, and the performance will begin at 7 pm.

This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Mn State Arts Board and the SE Minnesota Arts Council thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.