Xenobia Bailey is a trash alchemist, a single stitch, urban crochet aficionado, designer, artist and community activist, whose practice industrializes the visual aesthetic of “Cosmic-Funk,” practiced by African-American homemakers since Emancipation, into utilitarian “Funktional” design. Media exposure ranges from an Absolut advertisement to a design consultancy with Disney World, and a subway mosaic commission from the MTA in New York. She has shown internationally, with such institutions as Creative Time, the Sharjah Art Foundation, and numerous U.S. Embassies. Her work is held by numerous museums, as well as in academic, corporate, public and private collections.

Her ABOG Fellowship will support Paradise Under Reconstruction, a pedagogical model that will collectively fabricate prototypes for health aids and services for the needs of African-American communities in Seattle, WA and Harlem, NY. A multigenerational, inspirational, motivational, and passionate dreamscaping and skills-building project, Paradise Under Reconstruction will bring together community homemakers, household members, adults, young adults and teens to cultivate future visions and de-traumatize and fabricate commercial utilitarian artifacts for sustainable living in their homes. Conjuring Afrofuturism through rural and urban storytelling and historical remixing, participants will also write de-traumatizing fictional historical bedtime folktales, lullabies and medicinal psycho-parables, using the inspirational environments inspired by “Funktional Artifacts.”

Visit Xenobia Bailey’s website

Artist portrait by Daisy Chen.