kai lumumba barrow
Radio Outlaw is a low-frequency, micro-broadcasting radio studio situated inside of a reconstructed tricycle. A temporary public spectacle designed to attract attention, curiosity and feedback, Radio Outlaw was envisioned as both a site and sound installation launched during one during the Black Masking Indian’s, “Super Sunday.”
About the Artist
kai barrow (b. 1959, Chicago) is a visual and performance artist based in New Orleans. Barrow is interested in the praxis of radical imagination. Together with her four muses: Absurdity, Sarcasm, Myth and Merriment, she experiments with abolition as an artistic vernacular. Her sprawling paintings, environmental installations, found object assemblages, and social practice performances are created in traditional and non-traditional spaces to transgress ideological, geographic, and carceral borders. The work performs queer, Black feminist theory as an aesthetic genre.
Barrow is a member of the Antenna Collective and a founding member of Gallery of the Streets, a national network of artists, activists, and scholars who work at the nexus of art, political education, social change and community engagement. She has received residencies, fellowships, and awards from Prospect New Orleans, Project Row Houses; the New Orleans Contemporary Arts Center; the Joan Mitchell Center; A Studio in the Woods; Alternate Roots; the Kindle Project, and The Weavers Project.
A social-movement organizer for over forty years, barrow has worked with numerous grassroots organizations including SLAM!, FIERCE!, Critical Resistance, UBUNTU, and Southerners on New Ground. She is currently the Program Director with The Weavers Project, which provides fellowships and residencies for Black Feminist artists.
kai’s Website | Gallery of the Streets Website |
IG: @galleryofthestreets
About the Partner Organization
Cooperation New Orleans develops worker-owned cooperatives and the structures to support them, with a focus on poor, working class Black, Indigenous, and immigrant communities. They strengthen the cooperative infrastructure/ecosystem in New Orleans by offering political education, practicing language justice, sharing skills and resources, and developing a community loan fund.
Website | IG: @coopneworleans
Artist’s Statement
Determined to try what Mariame Kaba calls “abolitionist experiments,” we aimed to develop a prototype that would meet the needs of New Orleans communities. Our shared goal, to amplify the “hidden histories” of BIPOC New Orleans cooperatives, sustained our process. Through meetings, trainings, interviews and community art-builds, we created Radio Outlaw, a low-frequency, micro-broadcasting radio studio situated inside of a reconstructed tricycle.
DJs from Cooperation Gumbo used micro-broadcasting technology and techniques to share pre-recorded and live content on-site and in the airwaves. A temporary public spectacle designed to attract attention, curiosity and feedback, Radio Outlaw was envisioned as both a site and sound installation launched during one during the Black Masking Indian’s, “Super Sunday.”