Swamp Jam is a celebration of environmental justice work, past, present and future. An open door for those looking to make an impact in their communities. A space that places art, artists and culture as essential to the world we are building.
Join us in conversations, experiential learning, shared meals, dynamic participatory workshops, lots of play, and immersive art. We will engage ideas around local and national climate policy, building backyard solutions for everyday life, and creative pathways into environmental justice work. We will also have space to process the grief around what we have lost and honor the possibilities for what we can still create together.
Welcome
12 PM
Orientation with Grounded Possibilities co-founders Monét and Derrick
Artist Talk & Lunch
1 PM - 2PM
An illuminating conversation about art and environmental justice featuring Commissioned Artists Benny Starr and Majesty Royale-Jackson and facilitated by Alyssa Cuffie Onuoha, host of Durham Artist Archive podcast.
PRAXIS PREP
12 PM – 5 PM
A menu of experiential workshops and art installations.
Check out the full schedule for more details.
JAMBOREE
6–9:00 PM
featuring music by
Professor X
Katie Blvd
Lance Scott and Friends
Theo Croker
What You Need to Know
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We're here for the community builders, tree huggers, muckrackers, organizers, artists, accidental leaders, solution seekers, world builders, dreamers, and folks who don’t know what do you but are willing and ready to try
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Please note that Majesty Royale-Jackson’s performance includes a few instances of adult language.
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Grounded Possibilities Commissioned Artists 2026
Benny Starr & Majesty Royale-JacksonSpeakers
Rev. William “Bill” Kearney, Warren County Environmental Action Team
Dr. Rania Masri, North Carolina Environmental Justice Network
Judge Beverly A. Scarlett, Indigenous Memories
Delphine Sellars, Urban Community AgriNomics (UCAN)
Brittaney Whitenhill, Our Backyard LLC
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The Swamp Jam is one of our offerings to strengthen our collective imagination around environmental justice work, and center artists as important context experts.
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Reciprocene, a term created by Derrick Beasley in 2025, is a speculative anthropological age that describes a time when humans, non-human kin and the planet are in reciprocal relationship. The planet has changed and we have all changed in response. Because there is yet possibility in apocalypse.
Musical Acts
The Eno was sanctuary during the darkest time of my life.
Katie Blvd is a singer/songwriter, beatmaker and DJ from Raleigh, NC. The musical work of Katie's is inspired by the topics of diversity, personal discovery, her love for early hip hop culture, and the fight against social norms.
PERFORMING ARTISTS, INSTALLATION ARTISTS & WORKSHOP LEADERS
Majesty Royale-Jackson
Majesty Royale-Jackson (they/them) is a Black Seminole performance maker and installationist working in digital media, sound art and dance. Based in Durham, NC, their practice investigates personal and collective histories developed in collaboration with public institutions and the communities they embody. Drawing on Black queer technologies, Majesty creates interdisciplinary work that moves between theater, gallery, and public space.
Benny Starr
Black music and Southern culture find a unique voice in Benny Starr, whose deep affection for hip-hop, gospel, jazz, blues, and rock has created a fusion steeped in rich history, resiliency, and storytelling. His creations offer a captivating journey that invites you to explore these roots, offering a fresh perspective on a familiar narrative.
Derrick Beasley is a multidisciplinary Artist from Durham, NC. His fine art and cultural organizing practices are committed to community, Centering blackness. His work centers the possibilities for personal and community change that can result from being in reciprocal relationship with the environment.Derrick Beasley
Monèt Noelle Marshall is a theatre artist, filmmaker and cultural organizer. She centers Southern Black trans, queer folks and women in her work and defines her artistic practice as “rehearsal for the relationship.” Monèt Noelle Marshall
Sawdayah Brownlee
Sawdayah is a Gullah woman based in Durham, North Carolina, by way of Upstate South Carolina, Detroit, and Brooklyn. She is a farmer, educator, home cook, storyteller, sister, daughter, friend.
Sawdayah's art weaves together written and spoken word, prayers, gardening, and cooking to tell personal stories of the creation of home and the reclamation of her own Nature. Through her art, she aims to entice you to reflect on how critical relationships create our homespaces and how they contribute to ‘home’ existing/persisting, in spite of neocolonization, gentrification, and displacement. Her political and artistic focus is Black women homemakers who use(d) cooking as a tool for resistance and liberation.
Judge Beverly A Scarlett
Judge Beverly A Scarlett is a native of Orange County, North Carolina. She is a citizen of the Saponi Nation. After retiring from the state of North Carolina, Judge Scarlett co-founded Indigenous Memories. She utilizes historic court records and newspaper accounts to return the history of Free People of Color and area Indigenous nations to her community. She is a water protector, Indigenous mounds protector, and protector of slave burial spaces. She enjoys learning Indigenous uses of plants common to this area.
Dr. Rania Masri
Since 1990, Rania Masri has organized for justice and against systems of oppression and wars—through protests, teach-ins, and conferences; political organizing; public speaking training; and writings, research, and media work. She taught holistic environmental sciences (including environmental justice) at the university level for nearly two decades. She served as an expert in the Court of Conscience, where she presented testimony on the environmental impact of the 2006 Israeli War on Lebanon, and as a juror in the 2025 Merchants of Death War Crimes Tribunal.
North Carolina Environmental Justice Network
Brittaney Robinson- Whitenhill
Brittaney Robinson-Whitenhill is a multifaceted horticulturist, spiritual herbalist, and community leader that specializes in Afro-Indigenous ethnobotany, working closely with local BIPOC communities to regain food sovereignty and normalize herbal healing as a communal practice. As the founder of Our Backyard LLC, she enjoys designing and cultivating edible gardens for commercial and residential communities as a channel for reconnection back to land and the power it holds. Her practice places education at the heart of her services, aiming to empower her clients to see their relationship with the earth as essential to their wellness.
Urban Community AgronomicsDelphine Sellars
Delphine is the retired Director of the Durham Center of North Carolina Cooperative Extension. She holds a Master's of Science Degree in Organizational Management from Pfeiffer University, & an undergraduate degree in Social Studies from NCCU. Mrs. Sellars has 30+ years of experience in social & human services. Positions held both past & present include: Community Outreach Coordinator, Social Worker, Adult Vocational School Director & Employment Specialist. She resides on a number of boards and committees, is a skilled facilitator, grant writer, & manager.
Rev. Bill Kearney
Warren County Environmental Action Task ForceRev. William Kearney is a partner in several UNC community-engaged research partnerships and engages and consults with universities, organizations, and partnerships across the U.S. Rev. Kearney serves as associate minister and health ministry coordinator at Coley Springs Missionary Baptist Church and past vice president of the United Shiloh Missionary Baptist Association Church Union. He is also a research associate and community outreach manager at UNC's Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention. Rev. Kearney has co-authored numerous research manuscripts and articles and has co-produced various documentaries.
Brayndon Stafford
NC Black AllianceBrayndon is the Environmental Justice Program Manager with NC Black Alliance where he works with community through his passion for encouraging and empowering others.
OUR SPONSORS
