Dr. Lindsay Gary (PhD, MFA, MA, MPA) is a professor-scholar, conceptual diasporArtist, and Afrocentric entrepreneur whose mission is to educate, connect, and empower the African Diaspora. She graduated from the University of Houston with a BA in History and minors in Dance and Business Administration, and later obtained her Graduate Certificate in African American Studies. She also has an MA in History, an MPA in Public Policy, and an MFA in Dance, and recently obtained her PhD in Africology and African American Studies from Temple University. Gary is an adjunct professor of African American Studies at the University of Houston and of History at Houston Community College, in addition to being the Executive Director of The Re-Education Project (501c3), the Artistic and Executive Director of Dance Afrikana LLC, Co-Director of Ade Ile Properties (Nigeria), and the CEO of Isegun Enterprises LLC (home of Sawari Tours, Afrikanah Book Club, Gumbo: The Podcast, and more). She is the author of The New Red Book: A Guide to 50 of Houston’s Black Historical and Cultural Sites, and the director and creator of “Who Yo’ People?”, a documentary film that explores the African heritage of Louisiana.
Artist Statement
Dr. Lindsay Gary (PhD, MFA, MA, MPA) is a Conceptual DiasporArtist whose mission is to educate, empower, and connect the African Diaspora. With culture, spirituality, ancestry, history, and research being central themes in her work, she achieves this mission through a wide breadth of artistic forms. These include dance, writing, film, installation, textiles, cyanotypes, collage, music, theater, henna, and curation. Some of artistic highlights include:
- Founding Dance Afrikana, a professional dance company whose mission is to create a world where people of the African Diaspora are empowered and connected through the African dance tradition
- Choreographing several commissioned works including “In Veneration: Richard Brock” (Arts District Houston and Fresh Arts), “WAIL” (DiverseWorks), “Yemaya and The Flood” (Contemporary Arts Museum Houston); in addition to choreographing evening-length works such as “Who Yo’ People” and producing Dance Afrikana’s Annual Kuumba Festival
- Becoming the inaugural Writer-in-Residence for The Printing Museum which culminated in the publication The New Red Book: A Guide to 50 of Houston’s Black Historical and Cultural Sites
- Directing and producing “Who Yo’ People?,” a documentary film on the African roots of Louisiana Creole culture
- Creating the installation “Formed in My Grandmother’s Womb” as a Project Row Houses artist-in-residence (Round 50)
- Exhibiting “AncesTREE,” a self-portraiture, photographic and collage series that explores the complexities of a contemporary woman of the African Diaspora by looking at her experiences through an ancestral lens, at Community Artists’ Collective
- Being the lead artist oral historian for Memory Builds the Monument, a collaborative project with artist Mel Chin, Fifth Ward CRC, SOURCE Studio, and more which documented the history and culture of Houston’s Fifth Ward community
