Continuing our celebration of Pride Month, Andrea Jenkins is our Dazzler of the Day, thanks to their impressive quest on bettering the world through art, activism, and politics. Andrea’s website offers a more detailed glimpse into their powerful, current, and ongoing legacy:
Andrea Jenkins is a poet, writer and multimedia visual and performance artist, author of two chapbooks, “tributaries: poems celebrating black history” and “Pieces of A Scream”.In 2011 Andrea was named a Bush Fellow, and received the Many Voices Fellowship at the Playwrights’ Center and The Cultural Community Leadership Institute Fellowship through Intermedia Arts. Most recently she was published …in the anthology Gender Outlaws II: The Next Generation. She has been a part of the local poetry community for several years, earning awards, fellowships and commissions during that time, including the 2002 Loft Literary Center Mentorship Series Award.She is a Senior Policy Aide to the 8th Ward City Council Member Elizabeth Glidden and serves on the boards of OutFront Minnesota, Forecast Public Art, and SMARTS.She has one beautiful daughter, Nia, and two equally beautiful granddaughters, Aniyah and Kennedy. Andrea co-curates Intermedia Arts’ Queer Voices Reading Series with John Medeiros, one of the longest running LGBT reading series in the country.In 2010, she was awarded the Naked Stages Grant from The Jerome Foundation and Pillsbury House Theater and the Verve Grant for Spoken Word from The Jerome Foundation and Intermedia Arts. She is a 2008 Givens Foundation Black Writers Fellow, 2005 Napa Valley Writers Conference scholarship winner, 2002 Loft Mentor Series Fellow and a four-time Cave Canem Regional Fellow. She has studied with many notable poets and writers, including Amiri Baraka, Alexs Pate, J.Otis Powell!, Elizabeth Alexander, Cornelius Eady, Wang Ping, Harryette Mullen, Mary Jo Bang, Nikky Finney, Natasha Tretheway, Major Jackson, E. Ethelbert Miller, Haki Madhubuti, Deborah Keenan, Patricia Kirkpatrick, and Tyehimba Jess.
“Art serves many purposes; it can heal, educate, entertain, and challenge. Art is a tool for speaking out because it has the ability to transform people. I try to use my art to give agency and dignity to Transgender people and Black people all over the world.” Andrea JenkinsAndrea Jenkins is an out Transgender poet, writer, visual artist, and community activist. She holds a Bachelors of Art degree in Human Services and Interpersonal Communications from Metropolitan State University, a Masters of Science in Community Economic Development from Southern New Hampshire University, and a Masters of Fine Art in Creative Writing from Hamline University.
Her work has appeared several journals and local newspapers, including most recently, Gender Outlaws: The Next Genderation, edited by Kate Bornstein and S. Bear Bergman, Pear Press, 2010. She has two chapbooks, “tributaries: poems celebrating black history”, and “Pieces of A Scream”, Purple Lioness Productions.
Active in the local, national and international arts scene, Andrea has performed at HousingWorks Bookstore in New York City, and at Toronto Pride in Toronto, Canada. In the Twin Cities you’ve likely seen her at the Loft Literary Center, The Guthrie Theater, Penumbra Theater, Pillsbury House Theater, Intermedia Arts, The Center for Independent Artist, Intermedia Arts, Patrick’s Cabaret, The Black Dog Cafe, Metropolitan State University, Macalester College, University of Minnesota, and several other venues too numerous to name.
As a visual artist Andrea has exhibited in group shows at:
-Pillsbury House, Obsidian Arts, “Balls”, September 2010
-Rau & Barber Studios, Kingfield Neighborhood Association, “Thinking Outside The Box”, February, 2010
-Minnesota State Fairgrounds, Curator, Roslye Ultan “Recycling Art”, May 2010
-Minneapolis Institute of Arts (MAEP), THE FOOT IN THE DOOR SHOW’, February, 2010
-Soap Factory, “Soul on Ice: Fifty African American Minnesota Artists”, 2008,
-Andrea serves on several non-profit boards including Forecast Public Arts, SMARTS, Outfront Minnesota, and The Metropolitan State Alumni Board. She co-curates the Queer Voices Reading Series with John Medeiros at Intermedia Arts and works for the 8th Ward City Councilmember, Elizabeth Glidden.
-In 2009 she was the winner the “Power of One Award”, by P-Fund LGBT Community Foundation
-Intermedia Arts named her a “Changemaker”, and Twin Cities Black Pride awarded her the Social Justice and Advocacy Award in 2010.
