BIMA is excited to announce a new partnership with Hiatus Magazine, an online compilation of quarantined teenagers’ most creative works. On BIMA’s social media, we will be featuring pieces from Hiatus’ spring 2020 issue featuring works by their teenage contributors created and imagined while sheltering at home during the COVID-19 pandemic. Any written works will appear here on BIMA’s blog for you to read in its entirety! You can also see all the works from Hiatus’ most recent issue on their website here.

Now on to today’s featured work!

——

Midsummer by Audrey Nelson

your silence right now is deafening
we are screaming in the streets
as you post your drinks by the pool and throwbacks to last years vacation
we will remember your silence
in a time when all voices were called
to rise up
to demand action
your silence rang out
slicing like a battle cry
through our calls
no justice no peace
your silence sharp and pointed
lodging itself in the barrier
protecting the oppressors
pushing us back
no justice no peace
your silence is heavy
we are carrying the weight of their names
saying their names
as your silence drags us further down
no justice no peace
we will remember your silence
as our souls bleed and our feet blister
we’ll march through the streets
and remember your silence

——

Be sure to follow Hiatus Magazine at their Instagram and check out all the work on their website here.

BIMA is excited to announce a new partnership with Hiatus Magazine, an online compilation of quarantined teenagers’ most creative works. On BIMA’s social media, we will be featuring pieces from Hiatus’ spring 2020 issue featuring works by their teenage contributors created and imagined while sheltering at home during the COVID-19 pandemic. Any written works will appear here on BIMA’s blog for you to read in its entirety! You can also see all the works from Hiatus’ most recent issue on their website here.

Now on to today’s featured work!

——

Silence by Bayla Rosenkotz

your silence right now is deafening
we are screaming in the streets
as you post your drinks by the pool and throwbacks to last years vacation
we will remember your silence
in a time when all voices were called
to rise up
to demand action
your silence rang out
slicing like a battle cry
through our calls
no justice no peace
your silence sharp and pointed
lodging itself in the barrier
protecting the oppressors
pushing us back
no justice no peace
your silence is heavy
we are carrying the weight of their names
saying their names
as your silence drags us further down
no justice no peace
we will remember your silence
as our souls bleed and our feet blister
we’ll march through the streets
and remember your silence

——

Be sure to follow Hiatus Magazine at their Instagram and check out all the work on their website here.

BIMA has had the privilege of being the site for Bainbridge Pride and Kitsap Pride Network’s annual event observing Transgender Day of Remembrance. As we cannot gather in person this year to remember the transgender lives lost this year, we asked Eve Palay, trans community member and representative for Bainbridge Pride, Rainbow Crew NW, and Jefferson County Transgender Support Group, for any thoughts or reflections she might wish to share with our community, along with a list of resources which can be found at the bottom of this page. We are grateful to Eve for her time and effort taken to allow all of us to share in this moment of remembrance.

—

In observing Transgender Day of Remembrance for years past, we usually hand-write cards with the names of transgender people murdered in the last year and then hand them out at our ceremony. We like to hand one card per person so that the reader gets to connect to the name and the cause of death on the card. Sometimes a reader may hold on to the card and the name for a long time, perhaps pinning it to a bulletin board by their desk.

When my friend, the Rev. Erin Grayson, was helping me cut and paste over three hundred cards, she sat back for a moment and asked, “Doesn’t it get to you, all these deaths?” I had to stop for a moment, and then I told her, no, I actually didn’t concentrate on the deaths. To me, I am overwhelmed by having the gift of these names in the first place. Twenty years or so ago, there was no list at all. Just think of the people who have brought these names from around the world to us.

We of the trans community want to share this gift. I learned when attending my first Transgender Day of Remembrance ceremony that we are sharing the gift of welcoming the spirits of these people who had so little welcome in their lives. And honestly, trans or not, we all know people like that.

The list is long and brutal—351 people this year alone. Sex workers and people of color are prominent, and most of the recorded deaths come from Central and South America. Please keep in mind that there is so much of the world that does not record trans deaths at all. After all, around the globe, trans sex workers are the least of us.

We have had a lot of support from the faith community over the years, and as we cannot have our usual gathering, we asked if churches and temples would like to share this gift in their services this month. We were pleased with the response we received. We did not want to take up their entire service, so the idea was to give them ten names to read. It turned out to be impossible to select just ten names from the list, so we gave them a choice of three lists, each with ten different names.

Our selected lists included Black and Latinx people, sex workers, and activists. Additionally, we included more victims from the Western world to underscore that this is not just a problem elsewhere. Still, these short lists are just a shadow of the whole list, just as the whole list is a shadow of what really goes on around the world. But it is not the number or the completeness that matters. Our hope is that you will find just one name that will connect with you, one spirit that can welcome as part of your own.

That is what we share. That is our measure of success.

– Eve Palay
Bainbridge Pride, Rainbow Crew NW, and Jeffferson County Transgender Support Group

—

BIMA has been provided a short list of names to honor and remember during Transgender Day of Remembrance this year. We invite you to take a moment of your day to sit with this list and remember these lives, and many others, that have been taken from us too soon.

Name: Hamsa, #12
Age: Not reported
Date of Death: Oct 13, 2019
Location: Hyderabad (India)
Cause of death: Burned
Remarks: They stumbled, their head was trampled, they were killed with kicks, sticks & stones.

Name: Brianna “BB” Hill, #17
Age: 30
Date of Death: October 16, 2019
Location: Kansas City (USA)
Remarks: Hill, 30, shot by a man who is currently in custody, was pronounced dead
when officers arrived on the scene. Kansas City Police Capt. Tim Hernandez told local press that the alleged shooter remained at the scene until they arrived.

Name: Chicho Chirinos, #21
Age: 49
Occupation: Sex worker
Date of Death: October 26, 2019
Location: La Plata (Argentina)
Cause of death: Stabbed
Remarks: The killer attacked from behind, kicked her and stabbed her again. The victim fell to the ground, but the killer continued to stab her with the knife several more times.

Name: Daphine Kauane, #32
Age: 15
Date of death: November 11, 2019
Location: Recife (Brazil)
Cause of death: Stoned

Name: Victoria Pineda, #37
Age: 28
Occupation: Activist/movement leader
Date of Death: November 16, 2019
Location: Departamento de Ahuachapán (El Salvador)
Cause of death: Beaten
Remarks: Victoria’s body was found naked, with her hands open as a symbol of crucifixion, holding some logs and a car tire on her head as a “crown of thorns” and her face disfigured due to stone blows

Name: Nikki Kuhnhausen, #56
Age: 17
Date of death: December 18, 2019
Location: Vancouver (USA)
Cause of death: Strangled/hanged
Remarks: Nikki Kuhnhausen, then 17, was reported missing on June 6. On Dec. 7, a hiker found her skull in the woods near Larch Mountain,

Name: Julie Berman, #63
Age: 51
Date of death: December 22, 2019
Location: Toronto (Canada)
Cause of death: Beaten
Remarks: Police said two people were inside the home when they arrived on scene and a female victim was found suffering from serious injuries.

Name: Mia Perry, #66
Age: 26
Occupation: Sex worker
Date of death: December 29, 2019
Location: Washington DC (USA)
Cause of death: shot
Remarks: A DC transgender woman was shot to death by, apparently, armed members of a private security company in a vacant apartment building, but there is still a lot of speculation about the case

Name: Dustin Parker, #68
Age: 25
Date of death: January 1, 2020
Location of death: Oklahoma City (USA)
Cause of death: Shot
Remarks: Dustin Parker, a 25-year-old transgender man, was fatally shot in
McAlester, Oklahoma, early on New Year’s Day. He was killed while working as a taxi cab driver.

Name: Nare Mphela, #69
Age: 27
Occupation: Activist/movement leader
Date of death: January 1, 2020
Location: Limpopo (South Africa)
Cause of death: Stabbed
Remarks: Nare Mphela, who won a landmark transgender discrimination case against her Limpopo high school in 2017, was stabbed to death in her home.

Name: Tamara, #83
Age: 24
Occupation: Sex worker
Date of death: January 13, 2020
Location: Saint-Petersburg (Russia)
Cause of death: Decapitated/dismembered
Remarks: The body of the deceased was found in the Mga River by an eleventh grader. Experts noted that the victim’s legs were carefully severed with a saw, and the soft tissues were cut off with a knife. The body was in the water for about six months.

Name: Ajita Bhujel, #92
Age: 29
Occupation: Sex worker
Date of death: January 18, 2020
Location: Kathmandu (Nepal)
Cause of death: Strangled/hanged
Remarks: Ajita’s body was found on the side of the road. She was raped, struck on the head with a blunt object and strangled. Her gold necklace and mobile phone were stolen. The motive of her death is unclear, however hate crime is not being ruled out

Name: Mari de Bastos Lima, #100
Age: 37
Date of death: January 27, 2020
Location: Santo Antônio do Leverger (Brazil)
Cause of death: Tortured
Remarks: The victim was buried alive

Name: Jessyca Sarmiento, #127
Age: 38
Occupation: Sex worker
Date of death: February 21, 2020
Location: Paris (France)
Cause of death: Run-over by car
Remarks: Jessyca was deliberately run over in a hit and run attack

Name: Monika Diamond, #152
Age: 34
Occupation: Owner of beauty shop/hair salon/bar/shop
Date of death: March 18, 2020
Location of death: Charlotte (USA)
Cause of death: Shot
Remarks: Monika was shot dead in an ambulance. Charlotte police and paramedics responded to a call about a disturbance in Days Inn where Monika was experiencing shortness of breath. When she was in the ambulance, the murderer, who was denied his entry, came back and shot her several times

Name: Musa, #169
Age: 15
Date of death: April 4, 2020
Location: Faisalabad (Pakistan)
Cause of death: Beaten
Remarks: She was ‘lured’ away by ‘local thugs’, physically and sexually abused and then murdered. Her body was left outside her mentor’s home.

Name: Johanna Metzger, #176
Age: 25
Occupation: Artist
Date of death: April 11, 2020
Location: Baltimore (USA)
Cause of death: Stabbed
Remarks: Johanna Metzger’s life was tragically lost in Baltimore, MD on April 14, 2020, after a stabbing on April 11. She was a self-taught musician of multiple instruments. A virtual vigil was held on Zoom

Name: Penelope Diaz Ramirez, #180
Age: 31
Date of death: May 13, 2020
Location: Bayamon (Puerto Rico)
Cause of death: Aphyxiation/smoke inhalation/suffocated
Remarks: Penelope was found hanging in a cell within the Bayamón correctional complex. Another inmate confessed that he used a piece of cloth to strangle her and then destroyed the evidence

Name: Helle Jae O’Regan, #200
Age: 20
Occupation: Hair dresser/stylist/beautician
Date of death: May 6, 2020
Location: San Antonio, Texas (USA)
Cause of death: stabbed
Remarks: Transgender hair stylist Helle Jae O’Regan was killed in an attack on a barbershop preparing to reopen in San Antonio, Texas. The killer choked her until she passed out and then stabbed her to death. Two other employees managed to escape

Name: Tony McDade, #215
Age: 38
Date of death: May 27, 2020
Location: Tallahassee (USA)
Cause of death: Shot
Remarks: The 38-year-old African-American transgender man, Tony McDade, was fatally shot in the Leon Arms apartment complex by an officer of the Tallahassee Police Department.

Name: Selena Reyes-Hernandez, #220
Age: 37
Date of death: May 31, 2020
Location: Chicago (USA)
Cause of death: Shot
Remarks: She was shot to death inside her home in Chicago because she told her assailant she was trans.

Name: Dominique “Rem’mie” Fells, #227
Age: 27
Date of death: June 6, 2020
Location: Philadelphia (USA)
Cause of death: Decapitated/dismembered
Remarks: Fell’s mutilated body was recovered from the Schuylkill river on June 9. Her body was stuffed into a suitcase with both legs severed, with stab wounds and evidence of trauma to the face and head.

Name: Essi Granlund, #229
Age: 26
Occupation: Sex worker
Date of death: June 12, 2020
Location: Vantaa (Finland)
Cause of death: Stabbed
Remarks: Essi was stabbed with a kitchen knife. The police failed to report her killing for over a month. When they finally did, they described the attack as “an argument between two men”.

#Name: Brayla Stone, #240
Age: 17
Occupation: Artist
Date of death: June 25, 2020
Location of death: Little Rock (USA)
Cause of death: Shot
Remarks: The body of Brayla Stone was found in a car on a walking path in the Little Rock suburb of Sherwood

Name: Summer Taylor, #255
Age: 24
Occupation: Employee/clerk/civil servant
Date of death: July 4, 2020
Location: Seattle, Washington (USA)
Cause of death: Run-over by car
Remarks: Summer Taylor, protester killed in Seattle, honored for ‘standing up for black lives’

Name: Manuela de Cassia, #268
Age: 48
Occupation: Sex worker
Date of death: July 20, 2020
Location of death: Milan (Italy)
Cause of death: Stabbed
Remarks: The victim was stabbed 80 times

Name: Exón Vélez, #227
Age: not reported
Date of death: July 26, 2020
Location: Provincia de los Ríos (Ecuador)
Cause of death: Stabbed
Remarks: Exón, a non-binary person, was murdered along with their partner with machete blows

Name: Aja Raquell Rhone-Spears, #278
Age: 32
Date of death: July 29, 2020
Location: Portland (USA)
Cause of death: Stabbed
Remarks: Aja Raquell Rhone-Spears, 32, was stabbed at a vigil for another homicide victim, Tyrell Penney, in Portland. A second person, whose identity has not been released, was also stabbed.

Name: Britani Jacqueline, #313
Age: not reported
Date of death: August 26, 2020
Location: Jalisco (Mexico)
Cause of death: not reported
Remarks: Britani was detained by four municipal police officers and was later found dead. It is believed that it was an extrajudicial execution

Name: A. V., #341
Age: 24
Occupation: Sex worker
Date of death: September 20, 2020
Location: Santo Domingo (Dominican Republic)
Cause of death: Run-over by car
Remarks: A young trans woman was run over and killed after having a fight with a client. Prior to the event, the assailant had communicated to another trans sex worker his intention to murder a trans girl

—

Resources:

• Kitsap Transgender Community Group
• Teen Talking Circles
• Jefferson County Transgender Support Group
• Kitsap Pride
• Bainbridge Pride
• PFLAG
• Rainbow Crew NW

BIMA is excited to announce a new partnership with Hiatus Magazine, an online compilation of quarantined teenagers’ most creative works. On BIMA’s social media, we will be featuring pieces from Hiatus’ spring 2020 issue featuring works by their teenage contributors created and imagined while sheltering at home during the COVID-19 pandemic. Any written works will appear here on BIMA’s blog for you to read in its entirety! You can also see all the works from Hiatus’ most recent issue on their website here.

Now on to today’s featured work!

——

Dear William by anonymous

I’m glad I discovered you. I’m thrilled to connect with you. I’m excited I found you. We hope that you and your loved ones are doing well during these uncertain times. I hope this finds you safe and well. I hope to find you and your family safe and healthy. A motivated student like you has a bright future ahead. You know you have what it takes to become a leader someday, right? We believe in you. Congratulations on your impressive test scores. Are you a go-getter, William? William, are you ready to say hello to the most challenging and rewarding years of your life? Let your light shine, William.

Never again will you receive so many glossy brochures, booklets, and posters—this is, alas, the price you pay for being a bright student. Baby chicks are more than small, cute balls of fluff. In fact, baby chicks exhibit altruism by making special chirps while feeding, calls that alert nearby chicks (likely relations who share many genes) that “dinner’s on!” Climate change is already impacting communities around the world. Your journey has begun. Start becoming your best. Master the art of juggling. Or physics. Or philosophy. Education with a view. Find yourself in the sun.

With a community built around strong connections between students and professors, we facilitate learning at the highest level. Our size means each student gets more attention from each professor. It’s rare to find a selective liberal arts college in a city. But you can discover that perfect combination right here. Our location enables students to grow intellectually through practical experiences in internships and research. We’re here to connect you with all the incredible site-based learning opportunities our unique location provides. World-class academic programs. We offer 200+ majors. Here you’ll find top-notch academics, hands-on learning and once-in-a-lifetime undergraduate research opportunities. There are thousands of courses, endless combinations of majors, no required subjects.

What if you could graduate debt-free? We meet 100% of demonstrated financial need. Excellence can be affordable. Competitive financial support. Affordable—for everyone. Our new, expanded financial aid program. One of the most generous need-based financial aid programs in the country.

Please be sure to verify your contact information. Please don’t hesitate to reach out. Please feel free to give us a call. Please know that we are here to help in any way we can. Please check out our prospective students’ page. Please fill out the form here. Please provide your parents’ contact information. Please stay connected by joining our mailing list. Please confirm. Please find. Please click, please join, please take, please. Please please please please. For God’s sake, please.

——

Be sure to follow Hiatus Magazine at their Instagram and check out all the work on their website here.

See our full lineup events happening from our 2020 Día de los Muertos celebration here!

—-

This year, BIMA took the Within/Earshot Jazz Festival to places it has never been before—both figuratively and literally! For the first time, Within/Earshot was offered for free and presented digitally, allowing households across the globe to tune in. People from all over “visited” BIMA, streamed concerts, lectures, and programs all month long, allowing the museum to continue to produce meaningful and compelling digital programs throughout the lockdown and beyond.

Within/Earshot 2020 streamed from BIMA’s galleries, presenting concerts featuring some of the freshest, most exciting jazz voices in our region surrounded by the incredible art from BIMA’s Fiber 2020 exhibition. The best part about this online jazz festival? All of the concerts are available to watch (or rewatch) anytime you want! Check out each concert here:

• Jacqueline Tabor Jazz Band in Concert
• En Canto in Concert
• Jean Chaumont Group in Concert
• Evan Flory-Barnes in Concert

The festival also traveled off-site to Seattle to visit Jazz Alley and Washington Hall for lively conversations about jazz with musician Marina Albero, John Bishop (Founder of Origin Records), Carol Handley (Music Director at KNKX), Brian Kirk (Professor of Jazz Studies, Seattle Central), Rob Perry (Jazz Alley), and Amanda Wilde (KUOW’s “The Swing Years”), and artist Zia Gipson presented an interactive art workshop on improv & abstraction. Most of these presentations are also available to revisit anytime you’d like:

• A Conversation with Rob Perry of Jazz Alley
• “The Future of Jazz” Panel Discussion
• “Swing Years Unboxed” with Amanda Wilde

We would also like to extend enormous gratitude to our sponsors for supporting Within/Earshot so enthusiastically and so faithfully: Thank you, Realogics/Sotheby’s, City of Bainbridge Island, KNKX 88.5, and Steve Davis for championing jazz music and making this year’s festival possible. We would also like to thank all of this year’s be-masked and be-shielded staff and participants for diving into music, art, and conversation with such heart and generosity, and for doing so with safety in mind. Within/Earshot was rich, compelling, and fun, and it was safely produced and presented and we could not have done it without your diligence: thank you.

This is an important time in the world and it is an important time for art, so thank you for connecting with us and for keeping art in your hearts. We sure miss you! BIMA will continue to roll with the punches, creating programs and adapting them to the evolving world we live in. We look forward to doing so with ingenuity, imagination, and with the belief that we will all be together again soon.

Onward!

For this year’s Within/Earshot Jazz Festival, we asked artists from the lineup and some that have performed at BIMA in the past about what inspires them. Check out what some of this year’s artists said below!

Be sure to check out the lineup for this year’s festival for links to watch all the concerts and events even after they’ve happened!

For years now, I rise every morning and step into the living room of whatever house or apartment I happen to be living in, and I look into a painting. I take a few moments and sink into reflection as I view the magnificent La musique or l’orchestre rouge (1957) by Salvador Dalí. A framed print of this painting has followed me from my first apartment as an adult in Seattle, to a rural home on Whidbey Island, to its current spot in my rental in North Seattle. Wherever I live this painting hangs in easy view so that I might encounter it several times a day. It is a striking image—set against a red curtain, a hollow-bodied and faceless white performer in deepest emotion grips the hand of a beautiful black body, expressed in the form of a cello. The ebony “instrument” points upward towards a living branch in an otherwise nearly barren landscape. To the right a weeping white piano with yet another faceless performer lunges towards the instrument, fingers failing to connect with the keyboard. I have been told that this painting is a celebration of music. I have never found it to be as such.

As a performer and composer, I identify with several musical traditions in my work. However, I continue to identify most strongly with my role as a modern jazz musician. I am also a white, college educated middle class male. From my earliest connection to the jazz world as a student to this very moment as a performer, this painting is a daily reminder that I must grapple with the history of systemic racism in western music. Staring into the painting daily, I ask myself questions of extraordinary complexity, many without answers and all in continuous evolution. What is my role as a white performer in a music rooted at its core in the rich cultural contributions of the black community? Does my role as a white jazz musician take up space that ought to be rightly occupied by black performers? Am I adding to the legacy of systemic racism and male dominance in western-based music? Am I honoring, through my work, in my teaching and in my performances, the personal sacrifices made by black musicians who gave us this music which is of such critical importance?

– Neil Welch
(saxophonist and one half of the Seattle drum/sax duo Bad Luck)

We live in strange and dramatic times. The new normal for live music and the fine arts has physically separated performers and artists from the audience. A wave of cancelled public events was replaced by music in the living room and online performances with no public present. The pandemic may have restricted movement, but not creativity. Paradoxically, there are now more opportunities for collaborations than ever before, boosted by more affordable video editing tools, communication technology, and audience reached through social media. Suddenly, the world is now the main stage for musicians and artists alike.

This new reality has deeply influenced my current musical approach, as well as the artistic inspiration and creative concepts of my spouse, Julia Crosara. From my personal observation, Julia’s use of color and form is bold and vibrant, she creates new pieces with the spontaneity and determination akin to jazz improvisation. The images jump out of the canvas, the nuances demand attention, and best of all, the meaning of each painting is left to the subjective imagination of the viewer.

It was only a matter of time before Julia and I would collaborate on a creative project. The opportunity presented itself in early summer during the lockdown, in the midst of a highly creative time for both of us. While I was writing a new composition, Preludio Flamenco, she was creating a series of fresh abstract paintings. Every day we shared notes and inspired each other’s work. It quickly became apparent that the collaborative moment had arrived.

The new Preludio Flamenco project required a bold, multi-dimensional approach. As the song took shape thanks to the enthusiastic virtual collaboration with some of the best musical talent in Seattle and Los Angeles, I selected nine of Julia’s recent abstract pieces to incorporate into each scene in the video. Art and music blended perfectly. Each painting reflected the surroundings of the individual musician being featured. The art itself came alive through video transitions as if dancing with the Latin jazz groove. The 8-minute music video was selected to appear at the Earshot Jazz Festival as part of the Second Century series and was broadcast on October 21st.

This is just the beginning of future joint projects with Julia. Abstract art and Jazz improvisation: two unique worlds that blend together beautifully.

Watch the Preludio Flamenco video on YouTube.