Regina Taylor wants your mixtape. But before you start making links and burning CDs, this isn't your typical sampler. It's a community-based project open to students with an aim for inspiring dialogue through the arts. "This is an invitation for all people—students, faculty, and community members—to share what's on their minds and in their hearts at this very pivotal moment in history," said Taylor to Columbia College Chicago. "My hope is to inspire this wonderful community of creatives to express themselves through the arts and to confidently stand up and speak out about the heavy topics we all face today."
An award-winning actress and playwright, Taylor is partnering with Columbia College on the Black Mixtape project, a program inspired by her socially minded conversations about Black Lives Matter and the pandemic. Its theme is entitled "Stand Up, Speak Out." And those words move deeper than their catchy phrasing. Taylor wants submissions, centered for necessary conversations, to answer questions about the mood, desires, hopes, and anxieties about the present political landscape of the country: How do we end the persistent violence afflicting everyday life? How do we create equitable spaces for expressions of gender and identity? It begins by giving a voice a platform.
The Black Mixtape is such a project: Of the submissions, six students will be selected to win $400 each. The original work can be of any discipline, spanning several issues from politics to Mental Health, Gun Control, Water, and so forth. The audio/visual length can run up to 7 minutes. Participants may submit as many times as they want. The deadline to apply is March 29. The winners will be announced April 5.
Further information can be found here. To submit your work to the Black Album Mixtape, follow this link.
