Fairview & Asheville

Sound of Rest Tour: Uplifting the Voices of the Unrested

July 7 | 6 PM to 8:30 PM | Sound of Rest Song Circle

July 8 | 2 PM to 5 PM | Tender Touch Workshop + Optional Installation

July 9 | 2 PM to 5 PM | Parenting Sex Ed with Antiracism Lens Deep Dive

Sound of Rest Song Circle

July 7 | 6 PM to 8:30 PM

Sound of Rest Song Circle is a song meditation centering black voices uplifted to interrupt the trauma story of Unrested Labor. This is an opportunity for us to be in prayerful meditation and a slowing down of what it means to absorb a collective commitment to supporting folks that have been navigating the state of being Unrested in their resource gathering.

This is a mixed space event, both people of the global majority and allies are welcome. The meditation will support holistic thinking on how to make resource gathering happen in a rested state in communities that have historically had to fight for survival. The event will also help break down what it means to be an ally, a key supporter, an anchor person, and a disruptor of the Unrested Labor trauma story, not just this weekend, or this month, but as a part of a life practice.

Unrested Labor is the acknowledgement of the slavery and post slavery exploitation of black labor that is often unvalued, untracked, and unsupported. Generations of black bodied people have been at the bottom of capitalism tiers to the benefit of those at the top. Unrested Labor is recognizing the work of people of the global majority that have labored for countless hours with no rest, often while required to be at a high level of performance with a low level of nourishment.

Children are welcome to attend the song circle! 

Tender Touch Workshop + Optional Installation

July 8 | 2 PM to 5 PM

Tender touch is something that black people were never supposed to experience post slavery, from each other or from white hands. The Tender Touch: Lynching and the Unrested art installation speaks to one of the more common ways America chose to terrorize black bodies. Tender touch has been taken from black bodied people, with the invention of The Black Brute archetype to justify lynching.

We are here to bring commitment, awareness, and tools to be able to identify the Chronically UnderTouched, how this shaped our culture, and how we can be interruptive forces. One way we can be that interruptive force is to create non-extractive places where it is safe for tender touch for black people to take place, where Unrested Labor is not used to perpetuate the oppressive hands of racism on touch, on rest, on closeness, on tenderness. To normalize this as a way of being, the barriers keeping tenderness and the black body as separate need to be acknowledged.

With a lynching art installation as an anchor point, we will meditate, pray, and examine the lineage of black bodied people. We will weave in song, sounding, grief space, opportunities to write and strategize practical ways to interrupt this trauma story as part of a lifelong practice. 

The installation is optional viewing, placed in a sacred area that is at a short walking distance from our primary workshop location. Please participate in the viewing only if you are feeling capacity to do so. All guests are encouraged to bring or have at the ready a journal, writing instrument, and an object that feels connective to nature for grounding.

While this workshop is open to all, we do want to note that the emotional labor for people of the global majority in both discussing and viewing this content can be high, especially when doing so in the presence of those of the global minority. If you identify as BIPOC, please consider contacting unrestedlabor@gmail.com before the event for a check in about how we might support you in the space. 

If you are a parent who will need childcare for this event, please let us know by emailing with the "Contact Organizer" button. Thank you!

Parenting Sex Ed with Antiracism Lens Deep Dive

July 9 | 2 PM to 5 PM

Parenting is one of the most important types of activism we do, right in our living rooms, raising children. Children’s education can play a critical role in ending racism and systemic oppression. This workshop and/or deep dive is about asking questions of ourselves as parents and encouraging our children to ask questions of the world around them. Because the purchasing, selling, and commoditization of the sexual energy of black bodies is a part of American history, the long term impact of those trauma stories should be acknowledged and held as a part of sex education curriculum. In Aaron’s experience, a sex education program that does not include a deep analysis of the lynching of black people is incomplete.

We will wrestle with the questions:

—When do I talk about race with my children? What should I say? Will I traumatize my child?

—How do I create my own questions for myself, my partners or community, and my children around this critical topic?

—How do I prepare the next generation of white children to be anti-racist?

—How can we talk about touch, consent, and sexual education with our children in a way that includes race?

—What is the link between lynching and sex education of both children who are white or of the global majority?

If you are a parent who will need childcare for this event, please let us know by emailing with the "Contact Organizer" button. Thank you!

COVID-19 Check-in

Masking in indoor settings is preferred; performers/facilitators will be unmasked after rapid testing prior to the event. Masks are optional in outdoor settings. 

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