Qiaira Riley
Qiaira Riley is a South-side Chicago raised, sweet potato pie loving sagittarius and interdisciplinary artist based in Philadelphia. She holds a dual B.A. from Lake Forest College in African American Studies and Studio Art, and is a recent graduate of Moore College of Art and Design’s Socially Engaged Studio Art MFA. Her academic, curatorial, and creative work explores archiving, Black women's cooking phenomenology, ancestral veneration, internet art, and simulacra.
Awarded Grants
2022
Residencies
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Overview
Leeway x Fleisher’s 2022 Visual Artist-in-Residence, Qiaira Riley will focus her residency on creating a visual ode to Jet Magazine’s periodic depictions of Black American lifestyles, culture, and beauty. Qiaira’s project, entitled “Beauty of the Week”, honors Jet’s archive as a tangible space to explore Black American legacy and memory through aesthetics. Utilizing imagery Jet, Qiaira will create a series of 10-15 hand-built ceramic vessels, reminiscent of the Black cherub and angel figurines, often advertised in the magazine. Additionally, she also plans to create a series of cyanotypes, utilizing various found imagery from Jet, while incorporating screen printed text and graphics from popular products often featured in the magazine.
With this visual work, Qiaira will facilitate a series of community cyanotype workshops, where participants are invited to bring their own personal photo negatives, as well as utilize imagery from Jet to create collective sun-printed tapestries on mural-sized fabric. Through these workshops, Qiaira aims to create a collective artistic practice centering the history, memories, and experiences of the descendants of Black American exodus, while also inviting space to explore how this lineage connects to contemporary migration narratives.
2021
Art and Change Grant (ACG)
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Overview
Qiaira's project, "All Fire Signs go to Heaven or the Emancipation of Mimi: Soul Singing and the Politics of Surrogation in the Age of Catastrophe", will be an art and performance festival exploring hyper femininity; performances of the urban; the futurity of mixed race identity; and the perceived excessiveness of the Black femme body personality and mind through the lens of Mariah Carey's The Emancipation of Mimi. The festival will include an art exhibition, artist talk, musical performances, and an accompanying zine, all curated by a Black femme fire signs. Qiaira hopes that revisiting and reviewing this album will allow Black femmes to explore how they have long been over utilized, but seldom receive opportunities to truly center, celebrate, and honor themselves.