The realities and ongoing effects of climate change require our adaptation, rooted in a re-orientating and re-imagining of our relationships to place, space, self, and one another. This pro fana invites us to consider our experiences and relationships to Blackness; how memory is a repository, inheritance, and site for healing and reclamation; how the experience of place in the racial dis/order around Blackness can actually offer us a throughline towards an elsewhere of being. We’ll hear about GIS-based research into discrimination, mis-hearings that produce new imaginative terrains, and enjoy supper together. I’m still waiting to confirm if there will be another special guest to present–I am keeping my fingers crossed!

Ian Sharkey was born at Fort Carson’s army base near Colorado Springs. His Moms family is most recently from Pennsylvania and has roots in Virginian/South Carolina Slavery, Seminole/Cimmaron Culture, Irish indentured servitude, and Lene Lenape cultures. His dad’s family is most recently from Utah and has strong ties to the founders of the Mormon church. They can trace some of their lineages to the guy that fell off the Mayflower and many Irish, Welsh, and brittish farmers. Ian has a strong interest in the origin of his family and the systems that rule our world. He earned his Master’s in November 2022, and for his Master’s Capstone, his primary focus was housing discrimination and segregation within Denver. He is currently employed at Denver Housing Authority as a Geotechnical Analyst/Urban Planner.  

Steven Dunn, aka Pothole (cuz he’s deep in these streets) is the author of two novels, Potted Meat and water & power. He was born and raised in West Virginia, and is currently writing a LOT about Black joy and Black playfulness.