A collective of women's voices joins together to explore issues of identity, culture, immigration and migration and to activate some of the powerful stories from the Welcome Blanket project. 

On the closing day of the exhibition, Emily Hooper Lansana, Jasmin Cardenas, and Bindu Poroori will share stories of their own families and from the outpouring of Welcome Blanket memories and insights. Together we will weave tales, music, poetry, and song to honor this history and this moment.

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ABOUT THE PERFORMERS

Emily Hooper Lansana is an arts administrator, educator and performing artist, she is Associate Director of Community Arts Engagement at the Logan Center for the Arts at the University of Chicago. She performs with In the Spirit. She has been featured at the National Storytelling Festival, the National Association of Black Storytellers Festival, and at many venues. She enjoys passing on traditions as a coach and mentor with Ase Youth Group and Rebirth Poetry Ensemble. She received her BA in Theater Studies from Yale University and MA in Performance Studies from Northwestern University.
 
Jasmin Cardenas is a Colombian American bilingual storyteller from Chicago. Last year she was an Exchange Place Teller at The National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough, TN and has been featured teller at the Evanston Storytelling Festival, Midland Storytelling Festival in Texas, and a teller and presenter at the National Storytelling Conference in Kansas City. She was interviewed on the Podcast Appleseed and has stories on the 2nd Story Podcast. She is a recipient of The Racebridges Storytelling Fellowship and has a heart for justice.
 
Bindu Poroori is a Chicago-based storyteller, musician, cultural producer, and organizer from Chennai, India. Her work deals with South Asian diasporic art traditions, and with coordinated political action as an intentional process/outgrowth of art-making. Catch her manifesting as a curator with Salonathon and Art, Now. Act, Now.; performing throughout the city independently and with her collective LEELA; and through her community programming work at Illinois Humanities.