Concert & Conversation with THIS IS A MOVEMENT

Please join us on July 23, 2025, from 7 to 8:30 pm for an Artist Salon with THIS IS A MOVEMENT (TIAM) featuring live music by mother artists Goussy Celestin and Amma Whatt, and conversation with the artists and Niama Safia Sandy, co-founder of TIAM. TIAM is an initiative launched in 2022 seeking to create a more equitable music industry through an intersectional Black feminist lens, centered upon non-hierarchical, collaborative and imaginative modes of creation and organization.

This event is one of a series of Mother Artist Salons being held in conjunction with the exhibition . Check the exhibition announcement or CRS calendar for details.

The event will take place at Tenri Cultural Institute of New York. Admission is free and no RSVP is required. Families with children are welcome!

ABOUT THE MISSION OF THIS IS A MOVEMENT

THIS IS A MOVEMENT (TIAM) was conceived in 2021 by a set of musicians, scholars, and leaders who often crossed paths and noticed a fragmentation in the field. The #MeToo movement had activated conversations and actions around gender justice, but the efforts were more disparate – artists were organizing, gathering, and taking action on the bandstand, educators were creating curriculum and writings within the academic space, and producers and presenters were raising standards and focusing on diversity. TIAM was launched with the hope that it could be a centralized place for this community to discuss different perspectives, share resources, and advance conversations around equitable representation. The name – This Is A Movement – was chosen to signal that a larger movement is happening in the field and to hold the organizers accountable to the mentality and long-term commitment that movement-building requires.

This Is A Movement asks what transformation looks like, with the goal of creating a robust community network that will work to cultivate a liberated music industry, placing equity at the forefront.

Women, those of underrepresented gender identities, and their allies are claiming a space that challenges the status quo of the jazz and creative music scene. This movement is changing ways of thinking, ways of working, and ways of living while confronting structural inequities based on gender, age, race, and culture. It is asking the essential question: What does a freer, fairer, and more representative music industry look like? To reimagine and remake our ecosystem, we invite numerous organizations, institutions, and individuals, bringing together artists, activists, organizers, and creatives to share their experience, their dreams, and their plans.

This Is A Movement offers historical context, academic data studies, relevant dialogues, and special guest speakers to an engaged and diverse audience of industry professionals, educators, students, performers, and the general public. This Is A Movement invites those leading change in the field, as well as those for whom these conversations are difficult. It aims to create an incubator for new ideas that will bring about the future change we need in our cultural spaces.

https://www.thisisamovement.com/

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION

Life Is Art Is Motherhood Is Art is an exhibition of five artists who are mothers of different generations — Daniela Kostova (Bulgaria), Aline Müller (Brazil), Quynh “Alex” Nguyễn (Vietnam), Katie Heller Saltoun (USA), and Satomi Shirai (Japan). Curated by CRS co-founder Christopher Pelham, the exhibition will be on view at Tenri Cultural Institute of New York from July 21 – 26, 2025.

“Being an artist is to experience a vigorous, experimental life of the mind and of the senses. Parenthood is another enriching experience: primal, haptic and life-affirming. Why are the two still seen as incompatible?” — Jeffrey Boloten and Juliet Hacking, Forward to How Not to Exclude Artist Mothers (and other parents)

This exhibition highlights the inspiring works being created worldwide by mother artists and examines the multifaceted relationship between motherhood and art-making. Through their diverse photography and 2D works, we invite you to consider the challenges that working mother artists face and reflect on motherhood and child-rearing as fundamentally creative acts, inseparably intertwined with art-making, deserving of our loving attention, respect, and support. Learn more…

EXHIBITION HOURSMonday, July 21 – July 26, 2025 (closed July 25)Mon – Thu 12 – 6 pm, Sat 12 – 3 pm

TENRI GALLERY LOCATIONTenri Cultural Institute of New York, 43A W 13th St, New York, NY 10011212.645.2800

ABOUT THE MUSICAL ARTISTS

Brooklyn-born Haitian-American artist GOUSSY CÉLESTIN interchanges the roles of pianist, composer, vocalist, dancer, educator, and arranger with ease.

While managing WeBop, an early childhood music program, Goussy is raising two sons, her “greatest creative compositions,” leading workshops, composing for her ensemble, in addition to holding a faculty position at BerkleeNYC.

Goussy’s awards include, Laundromat Project: Create Change Fellow, Queens Council on the Arts, Gardarev Residency, Field Leadership Fund, Space @ Ryder Farm Residency, NYC Women’s Fund, and received a commissioning grant from Mutual Mentorship for Musicians.

She’s recently been awarded the Jazz Leadership Fellow by the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music and a New York State Council on the Arts’ Support For Artists Award, for her KongoNola project.

https://www.goussycelestin.com/

https://www.instagram.com/goussycelestin_ayitibrass/

Vocalist, performer, and activist AMMA WHATT is a dynamic force in music. Praised by the New York Times for her ‘silk-infused vocals,’ she effortlessly captivates audiences. Her musical story began with learning African chants and West-African dance from her performing parents, and blossomed into her writing and performing with acclaimed bands like Grammy-nominated Nate Smith and Kinfolk, empowering children through self-expression and rhythm, and gracing stages across Europe and the US!

Amma was recognized by Pop Matters magazine as “a distinctive soul singer who absolutely seduces your ear,” and her latest music represents a fusion of modern pop with Soul, Afro-Caribbean styles, House, and Jazz, featuring evocative storytelling on themes of love, pain, and hope. Her viral a cappella videos dedicated to the religious music of Orisha worshippers worldwide exemplify her dedication to incorporating 29 years of faith as a Yoruba-Lukumi priest into her artistic expression.

While she balances music and her family life in New York, Amma is deeply engaged in global social justice causes and serves as vice president of the executive board of the Egbe Iwa Rites of Passage program. Through her volunteer work and musical activism, Amma seeks to leverage her voice as a powerful tool for advocacy and allyship.

https://ammawhatt.bandcamp.com/

https://www.instagram.com/ammawhatt/

NIAMA SAFIA SANDY is a New York-based multidisciplinary artist, curator, and change agent.

Sandy’s work across disciplines delves into the human story through the application and critical lenses of culture, healing, history, migration, music, race, and ritual. Her creative practice often is an examination of the ways history, economics, migration, and other social forces and constructs have shaped modern realities. Her aim is to use the visual, written, and performing arts to tell stories we know in ways we have not yet thought to tell them and to lift us all to a higher state of ontological and spiritual wholeness in the process.

She is a co-founder of THIS IS A MOVEMENT. She currently teaches graduate and undergraduate students at Columbia University, School of the Arts, and Pratt Institute, School of Art.

https://www.instagram.com/___niama___/

https://www.thisisamovement.com/

https://www.instagram.com/this.is.a.movement/

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