Beginning with a guided meditation to ground community during an unprecedented time, Mama Nia Wilson of SpiritHouse Inc. offers conference participants a moment to center themselves. The session continues with a discussion between Praycious Wilson-Gay and Mama Nia around the work of SpiritHouse Inc. and their choreopoem community intervention and ritual performance Collective Sun: Reshape the Mo(u)rning. They will also be discussing community care and what it looks like to use art as a healing mechanism in community. The session finishes with a video about SpiritHouse Inc. and the impact of their work in the Durham, NC community.
Nia Wilson aka “Mama Nia” is the daughter of Ronald and Elmira and the mother of Heather and Paul. Raised on Connecticut saltwater air, concrete stairs, crab cakes and Campbell's pork and beans, Nia is a gifted healer, story weaver and cultural alchemist, as well as the co-author and producer of the SpiritHouse Inc original production “Collective Sun-Reshape the Mo[u]rning.” She is a practical nurse who specialized in pediatric and psychiatric nursing, but found a much stronger calling working with Black youth and their families strengthening and amplifying the power that exists in their bones. Mama Nia is a lifelong learner and has most recently sharpened her skills by attending training through Black Organizing for Leadership and Dignity aka BOLD, and Somatics and Trauma training through Generative Somatics. She has been building community in Durham North Carolina, since embracing it as home in 1998, and currently serves as the Co-Director of SpiritHouse Inc, where she works with fellow artists, organizers, ritualists, healers and community members to create and sustain the world we all deserve.