Feminist Artist Feature: Autumn Breon is a multidisciplinary artist that investigates the visual vocabulary of liberation through a queer Black feminist lens.
FEMINIST sat down with Autumn to discuss how she uses her creativity to advocate for reproductive justice, voting rights, and feminist issues. Read on to learn more about Autumn’s inspiring journey and our exciting new collaboration with her.
Autumn Breon @autumnbreon
is an artist, activist, and freedom seeker who investigates the visual vocabulary of liberation through a queer Black feminist lens. Using various mediums, Autumn invites audiences to collectively imagine new systems that make current oppressive systems obsolete. Her groundbreaking artwork has been commissioned by Art Production Fund, Frieze Art Fair, and Target, and her performance history includes Hauser & Wirth, the Brooklyn Museum, the Walt Disney Concert Hall, and the Water Mill Center. Autumn is an alumna of Stanford University and a recipient of the Crenshaw Dairy Mart Fellowship for Abolition & the Advancement of the Creative Economy and Race Forward's Housing, Land, & Justice Artist Fellowship.
Three words to describe what being a feminist means to you?
limitless, imagination, care
How do you incorporate a queer Black feminist lens into your work as a multidisciplinary artist, and who else inspires you?
My practice is rooted in queer Black feminist traditions and these traditions frame what I create. I’ve imagined a planet called Esoterica that’s about 300 light-years from Inglewood and she’s led by a queer Black matriarchy. Esoterica is the next destination for ancestors when they leave Earth. This planet is powered by care and as a result, creativity is plentiful. All of my performances are rituals and ceremonies from Planet Esoterica and the objects I create are wormhole gateways to Planet Esoterica. My planet is a place of embodied liberation. Esoterica is the place “to speak and to thrive and to live” that bell hooks described when she defined queer as “being about the self that is at odds with everything around it and has to invent and create and find a place to speak and to thrive and to live.”
I’m inspired by women like Octavia Butler, Mickalene Thomas, Alice Coltrane, and Deborah Willis. They have imagined other worlds where we speak, thrive, and live. Their work inspires me because of how they illustrate and invite us into those worlds through words, images, and sound.
You had an incredible performance that aimed to reclaim and quantify the lost time experienced by Black women due to pay disparities. Could you share the inspiration behind this concept and how you used your artistic practice to share a spotlight on these issues?
Yeah! That performance is (Don’t) Use Me.
I read a report and learned that due to the racial and gender pay gaps, Black women are typically paid 63 cents for every dollar paid to white men. When you translate that pay inequity to time, that means that it takes about eight months into the next calendar year for a Black woman to earn what a white man earns in 365 days. I started imagining what I would do with that time when I have it back. After that, I wanted to know what other Black women would do with eight months of reclaimed time. I invited Black women to respond to the following question: What would you do with eight extra months of paid time?
I wrote down all of the responses on golden paper and wore them in my afro for the culminating performance at the Walt Disney Concert Hall. During the procession, my brass band (The Black Fist Brass Band) played Bill Withers’ song “Use Me” while four white men carried me in a palanquin. The audience was invited to select a note from my hair and read a Black woman’s reclamation of time aloud. After the performance, I released self-portraits inspired by Black women’s reclamations of time and sold them via blockchain. I included the authors as co-creators in the permanent digital ledger so that they continue to be paid in perpetuity as the digital art sells.
Don’t Use Me is special because it’s a physical and digital intervention that illustrates the reality of pay inequity while providing potential pathways to combat pay inequity.
The intersection of performance, sculpture, and public installation seems central to your art. Storytelling seems a significant aspect of your art practice too. How do you utilize storytelling to highlight the legacies and contributions of Black pioneers and advocate for the protection of public spaces dedicated to Black rest?
I’m really interested in the histories of Black leisure sites. In the early twentieth century, Black folks were organizing communities and economies around leisure and recreation in places like Bruce’s Beach in Manhattan Beach and Bay Street Beach in Santa Monica. When I created work for Frieze Los Angeles in 2023, I wanted to use art as a storytelling tool to remind folks of the history of the Black beach that existed down the street from the art fair.
I created Leisure Lives as an installation to honor Bay Street Beach and the Black spatial imaginary. Bay Street Beach was a seaside haven for Black Californians’ recreation from the early to mid-twentieth century. To monumentalize the legacy of the Black pioneers that fiercely protected public space dedicated to Black rest, I made an archway from wood, neon, and mirrors that served as a gateway to leisure. I invited folks in Los Angeles to use the Esoterica Hotline to imagine leisure as an intentional practice and to share where their leisure lives. Their responses were painted on one side of the archway and the other side had blue neon that spelled “leisure lives.” The installation was activated by my performance Swag Surf in the Water. My eight-piece brass band played with the Grant A.M.E. Church Choir while I was carried on a golden surfboard. The surfboard procession was my way of honoring Nick Gabaldón, the first documented Black surfer who taught himself how to surf in Santa Monica. I was using history, beauty, and collective imagination as reminders that leisure is not a luxury.
The partnership strives to contribute to broader conversations around reproductive rights, voting rights, and feminist activism as care. Engaging communities in conversations about the intersections of reproductive justice and care is crucial. Can you delve deeper into the Care Machine and why 'care' holds such centrality?
Care is how we combat violence and harm. It’s the foundation of the systems that will make harmful systems obsolete. I retrofitted a vending machine to make it a glowing, pink reminder of care. The Care Machine dispenses objects that Black women requested in response to the following question: What items represent and provide care? The Care Machine is fully stocked with lip gloss, books, tampons, pads, edge control, abortion pill resources, and lubricant. All contents are free of charge. I invite women to request objects for the Care Machine when it’s scheduled to appear in a city and so far the Care Machine has visited Inglewood, Miami, Venice Beach, Washington, D.C., and Austin.
Plan C has supported the Care Machine as it travels and shares abortion pill resources in different cities. Abortion pill resources are an essential part of the Care Machine because abortions are a form of care. Safe abortions should be just as accessible and convenient as getting anything from a vending machine. Plan C’s website (PlanC.org) has a Guide to Pills that shows you how to get abortion pills by mail and how to use the pills. I appreciate that a resource like this separates abortion access from politics and centers abortion where it belongs: in the hands of people that need abortions.
We’re excited about our partnership between Plan C, FEMINIST, and yourself! It aims to activate civic engagement and empowerment for reproductive justice through art and information dissemination. Can you share your perspective on your role as an artist in illuminating critical social issues such as reproductive justice, civic engagement, and pay equity?
I’m excited about our partnership too! My job as an artist is to model the world I want to live in. I want a world for myself and the people I love in which we’re cared for, fully realized, and thriving. That world includes reproductive justice, joyful civic engagement, and pay equity. The Vote Like An Intersectional Feminist Voting Guide is so exciting because it’s a resource that disseminates accurate information, which is a form of care! For civic engagement to be joyful, it has to be accessible. We’re working together to make sure folks are educated, empowered, and informed to take action and vote using an intersectional feminist framework.
I loved our collaboration in Austin for SXSW too! The Care House at Future Front Texas offered a day of care in the form of facials, the Care Machine, tooth gems, reproductive health resources, discussions, a zine-making workshop, and all around joy! It was so wonderful to work with y’all at Feminist, Plan C, For Freedoms, Project for Empty Space, and Future Front Texas to remind folks that information is a form of care. I’m also excited for what we’re cooking up for this year ;)
Beyond this partnership, how do you navigate the role of art in activism more broadly, and what aspirations do you hold for your artistic endeavors in the realm of social justice?
I was just in Arizona with the other artists in my cohort for the Race Forward’s Housing, Land, & Justice Artist Fellowship. We spent several days with organizers from around the country that are focused on housing justice. Something I heard that really resonated with me was that “artists don’t talk about what’s popular; instead, they make popular what needs to be talked about.” I have the privilege of making art that invites people to discuss what’s important and to also take action. I look forward to the day when we are fully liberated as a result of our collective action. I look forward to when I won’t have to make art that shows people how to get abortion pills by mail in places where abortion is illegal because there will be a day when everyone can easily access abortions. I look forward to when I won’t have to make art to illustrate pay inequity because there will be a day when we reach pay equity.
Lastly, could you shed light on your creative process and how you integrate activism into your art practice?
Creating with intentionality is a revolutionary act. My practice is rooted in creating work that builds a reality shaped by care. As a result, art and activism coexist in a symbiotic relationship within my practice. I integrate into collective care in every stage of the work that I create and this makes the act of creating as beautiful as the result. That’s how I approached a mural I just finished at the newest Target in Inglewood. I invited folks in Inglewood and South Central to share photographs of their favorite memories in the city. The photos were scanned and digitized free-of-charge before they were returned back to the residents for their own family archives. I collaged these images that spanned decades for a larger-than-life mural that will live on for future Angelenos to remember the joy of everyday life in Inglewood and South Central.
