The Laundromat Project

Risë Wilson is Paula’s daughter, Vera’s granddaughter, and Adelaide’s great-granddaughter. When her people were stolen across the Atlantic, they were dropped in Barbados and Virginia, but Wilson’s flesh was formed on the land of the Lenape, more commonly referred to as Philadelphia. Wilson is a product of the constellation of plant-magic, lies, constraints, stardust, tree-mothers, complexities, resistance, and surrender that inform Black life on this land. In 1999 she founded The Laundromat Project, an award-winning organization that connects artists and communities of color to their capacity to envision the world in which we all want to live and the skill sets to make it so. She currently serves as the Senior Advisor for the Art for Justice Fund while also planning to launch a new cultural space that combines art, activism, and healing practices. Her work in all its forms is preoccupied with dislodging herself from the bear traps of oppression so that she might help her kinfolk do the same.