The Choir as Dreamspace // Aisha Shillingford

Aisha Shillingford is an artist, writer, and strategist originally from Trinidad & Tobago. She has been a spiritual and cultural organizer and network weaver for social movements. Aisha has earned a BA in Environmental Analysis and Policy, a Masters of Social Work with a focus on Community Organizing, and a Masters of Business Administration with a focus on Innovation, Creativity and Social Entrepreneurship. She is the artistic director of Intelligent Mischief, a creative studio and design lab unleashing Black imagination to shape the future. 

 In this conversation, Aisha offers us a provocation to dream expansively about the future of choral music and community, imploring us to extend our frames of reference to imagine impossible realities. Aisha reminds us that seeds of the impossible have been and continue to be sown in the imagination of those whose realities have been confined by systems and structures that divide, violate, erase, and oppress. She asks us to make space for the unknown in our dreaming of a just and compassionate world and offers a recipe for a collective choral futuring, built on the values of self determination, participatory design, and time intensive relationship building. 

You can learn more about Aisha and her work at Intelligent Mischief at the website:

 www.intelligentmischief.com