Welcome to Our Mbari Harvest
[ten artifacts]
After ten months of tireless work throughout most of 2023, ten celebrated the launch of a new website and the fruits of an aesthetic ‘re-brand-ish-ing’ process. The elaborate mbari of the Igbo people of Nigeria is a large, open-sided shelter which houses life-size painted figures sculpted in mud and dedicated to Ala, the earth goddess, who is supported by deities of thunder and water. This new website is ten’s mbari. Nearly one hundred people came together online on April 13, 2024 to make offerings, dance, pray, tell stories, animate and meander through our new body.
The rich harvests that were offered to ten during the Welcome to Our Mbari party are too numerous to name. The team and hosts were overwhelmed with gratitude for the blessings and offerings made by our weird, tentacled, shape-shifty family of supporters and friends who came out (online) to celebrate. If you missed the whole hootennany (or wish to relive it), check out the recording:
Participants were invited to share in the breakouts what ten might look like in its most electrifying expression of itself! Here are some words and phrases that emerged:
Roots. Trans-local experiments and gatherings. Healing, eating meals, playing board games, and dreaming together. Showing up as our whole selves. Communing and ritual with the more-than-human. Paying attention to children’s ideas!!
In addition to the offerings made live on April 13th, ten also invited folks to share their creative responses to the following questions in the months leading up to the event: How does the practice of weaving manifest in your life – what forms, shapes and rhythms does it take? What are the strange and familiar, ancient and futuristic materials you are playing with?
Together, we wove a beautiful web of visual, auditory and mixed media creations which was shared during the Welcome to Our Mbari event. Find the full digital tapestry here and in the galleries below.