Artist Lukaza Branfman-Verissimo presents The Storyteller of the Future Says Welcome!, a performance and talk to help guide us into brightness. Branfman says, “although it’s extremely hard to even imagine it right now . . . the future will be bright. Let’s enact what support looks like, what chosen family looks like, what safety looks like, what melanin skin looks like in a sea of whiteness. Everyone is welcome, be gentle with each other, it will be a safe space.”

Lukaza Branfman-Verissimo is an artist, arts educator, activist, storyteller, and curator who lives and works in Oakland. Branfman-Verissimo’s work is informed by her commitment to craft and community, her engagement with society, and her interests in storytelling and cultural geography. Her mixed identity as a queer, Jewish American, African-Brazilian woman places her in a midst of numerous communities nationally and abroad. Through story collecting, printmaking, painting, and sculpture building, she strives to re-create and retell her personal tales and those of the people that surround her. Branfman-Verissimo received her BFA from California College of the Arts. She has had solo exhibitions at Deli Gallery in Long Island City, New York; Lago Projects and E.M. Wolfman in Oakland; and Bolivar Gallery in Los Angeles.