603 Shoutout: ‘Art & Mind 2025 Covid, Climate and Our Future’
Sista Creatives Rising produces third virtual event since 2021
Sista Creatives Rising (SCR) is a 100% virtual project and concept founded by Black, invisibly disabled mother-daughter duo Claire Jones, 62, and Amaranthia Sepia, 25. The duo prides themselves on working with primarily homebound, disabled, queer and BIOPIC creatives and activists.
“‘Sista Creatives Rising’ seeks to strengthen our community through virtual engagements, including our disability-accessible event, ‘Art & Mind’, “ said Sepia. “We do this through documentaries, short films, 3D virtual galleries, speaking engagements, and free resources led by therapists and disability activists.”
All of their “Art & Mind” events are free to ensure that anyone can watch and participate (by Zoom), and people can donate to The Sistas Uprising Fund if they choose. They offer the perspective that virtual content has value and can provide audiences with innovative solutions for the often-overlooked disabled community.
“‘Art & Mind’ and ‘\The Sistas Uprising Fund are inspired and dedicated to women like my mom, whose life was repressed by domestic violence, impeding her creative endeavors,” said Jones. “Growing up in Barbados under childhood domestic violence, I was determined to help my mother and women like her. Estranged, I learned of my mother’s passing in 2021 and was unable to visit due to strained familial relationships and, soon after, a lymphoma diagnosis and near paralysis.”
Forced to drop out of school at 15, Jones left the island to create opportunities for herself.
“In the 1990s, I discovered Buddhism, which taught me responsibility,” Jones said. “I became a Frances Perkins Scholar at Mount Holyoke, gained funding to visit Goree Island off the coast of Senegal to research the slave houses and my ancestry, and used what I learned to develop my semi-autobiographical one-act-play ‘SHADUHS UH VOODOO’ that served as my undergrad project, where I fundraised for a domestic violence shelter.”
This planted the seed for Sistas, as Jones began to understand the catastrophic effects of intergenerational trauma and how using art while giving back can help address these crises and heal deep wounds as she focused on raising her child.
Sepia was born in Northampton, Massachusetts, and moved to Connecticut for a while. After attending a Japanese international school for two years, she said she was severely bullied on her return to the United States.
“Creating works based on fond memories of Tokyo taught me the healing power of art,” Sepia said. “Since I was 13, I’ve coordinated art events on anti-bullying advocacy, Black Lives Matter, disability and women’s mental health.”
Sepia won the Haley Rae Martin Full Scholarship to Kimball Jenkins Art School at age 11 and created an anti-bullying project, titled, “Do You Know Who I Am?” The project toured local New Hampshire schools.
“From age 13 to 18, I graduated from an online homeschooling program called VLACS,” she said. “I continued creating and renamed my anti-bullying project to ‘I’m Proud of Who I Am!’, which toured as a local library gallery show.”
Then COVID hit.
“I pivoted and spent much time since 2020 coordinating art events and connecting with artists and organizations in Boston and beyond, including artists outside the country”, Sepia said. “With my experience with racial trauma in New Hampshire, I decided to find virtual spaces to connect with artists going through the same thing. It wasn’t until late 2024 that I started to connect again with organizations and creatives based in New Hampshire alongside my Mom.”
Although SCR is based in New Hampshire, its platform is international.
“We took a significant risk to invest in ourselves after our first ‘Art & Mind’ virtual film event in 2021, titled ‘Reflections of Women, Femmes & Our Mental Health During Covid’” Jones said.
“I came across a virtual business class for over $6,000 and decided this was the moment to break out of stagnation and self-sabotage,” Jones said. “I knew Amaranthia needed a boost, because she was unable to go to college due to her disabilities and chronic health issues.”
In March 2022, they had just launched SCR’s website and were about to launch an Instagram account when Jones had another physical setback and emergency surgery to remove B-cell lymphoma from her upper spine. The prognosis looked grim, but Jones has been in remission for three years, walking with the help of a cane.
“Once I recovered seven months later, we looked back at all the work we did with that course and realized it gave us everything we needed to get back on our feet,” Jones said. “We launched Sista Creatives Rising and made our second show, ‘Art & Mind: I Know Who I Am! Journeys of Women of Color & Femme-Expressing Creatives.’”
SCR’s third event will focus on COVID, climate change and their ongoing effects on BIPOC creatives who are homebound, disabled and immunocompromised. Artists and speakers will reflect on how it has affected their art and cultural practices, emphasizing Indigenous perspectives and experiences with displacement and climate disaster. During this three-hour event, attendees will be educated on how these issues have caused isolation for many disabled artists and how art can be used as a tool to empower others to fight against these injustices.
“We hope to fundraise $1,500 for the second iteration of The Sistas Uprising Fund, leading up to the event on Sept. 25 from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. distributed as five $300 microgrants in 2026.
To reserve a ticket for free or donate to The Sistas Uprising Fund, visit Givebutter.com/covidclimatefuture. More information can be found at sistacreativesrising.com.
Featured Artists:
Anahita Sharma / Anahita Creates (She/Her) — South Asian and disabled multimedia artist, tattoo artist focused on body liberation
Mondo Vaden / Mondo Millions (He/Him) — Deaf Black trans artist, activist and drag artist.
Founder of The Black Violet Revue, a show representing Black/Queer/Disabled folks
Sarena Brown / Frequent Crier Club (They/Them) — South Asian and disabled multimedia artist, workshop facilitator and activist
Event Speakers:
MC/Host Frankie Fingerling — Frankie Fingerling (they/them) is a neurodivergent multi-disciplinary artist with ancestral roots in southern China and Hong Kong. They are an occasional burlesque and drag performer, producer, emcee and classically trained pianist.
Disability & Climate Change Speaker Veronica Lee (she/her/ella) — Climate Activist of Mexican Indigenous descent. Doctoral student at Indiana University, studying geography with a passion for clean air initiatives, COVID and pandemic awareness in connection to climate change.
Therapist Amanda McGuire (She/Her) — A Black, disabled and immunocompromised therapist based in New Hampshire, passionate about disability justice, neurodivergence and COVID, and how these topics intersect with Blackness.
Medicine Song Woman Brenda Macintyre (She/Her) — A Cree and Ojibwe woman based in Canada, creating virtual accessible engagements like workshops around mental health, focusing on women, especially indigenous women, and those who are immunocompromised and COVID conscious. Brenda creates beautiful healing music, her voice, traditional hand drumming, and the unique Medicine Song Healing Technique.
Jennifer McZier (She/Her) — Jennifer is a Black disabled caregiver and hosts grief support/guidance events especially catering to those in the COVID-conscious and disabled BIPOC communities.
Event Sponsors:
Fiscal Sponsor — Black Womxn In NH Social Club
NH Women’s Foundation Women & Girls of Color Fund — 2024 & 2025 Recipients
NH Panther — thanks to the 2024 Black Excellence Fund
Nexus CP Northstar Black Cooperative Fellowship — 2025 Technical Assistance Fund
Dancing Queerly Boston
Collaborator and event partner, MaskedNH — A grassroots project, Masked NH is a COVID-cautious virtual and in-person hangout hub which also provides COVID-cautious education and resources online
This article was featured in 603 Diversity.
603 Diversity’s mission is to educate readers of all backgrounds about the exciting accomplishments and cultural contributions of the state’s diverse communities, as well as the challenges faced and support needed by those communities to continue to grow and thrive in the Granite State.
