Ashara Ekundayo

Independent curator, creative industries entrepreneur, and cultural strategist

Ashara Ekundayo is an independent curator, creative industries entrepreneur, cultural strategist, founder, and consultant working across arts, community, government, and social innovation spaces. Through her consulting company AE Creative she designs and manages multidimensional projects and fosters collaborative relationships through the use of mindfulness and permaculture principles to bring vision to life and create opportunities “in the deep end,” often with unlikely allies.  Her creative arts practice epistemology requires an embodied commitment to recognizing joy in the midst of struggle. Recent projects include the Bay Area “Breaking the Silence” Town Hall on Girls & Women of Color, “Survival Pending Revolution: The Black Panther Party at 50” exhibition, the “Art + Race Conference” and the Oakland Anti-Racist Organizing Committee.

Currently she holds Advisory Board positions with KQED Arts, Black Girls Code, the and the Oakland Public Conservatory of Music, and has served as a Fellow with Green For All, Emerging Arts Professionals, Schools Without Borders and Institute For The Future.  Ashara is also a Certified Permaculture Designer, Certified Foresight Practitioner, and a Graduate of Thousand Currents Leadership Academy. She was recently appointed the “Embodied Justice Resident” working at the intersection of spiritual practice, social justice and love at Auburn Seminary in NYC.

Ashara is the Co-Founder and Chief Creative Officer at Impact Hub Oakland and the Director at Omi Arts, and recently opened “Ashara Ekundayo Gallery” to investigate and inspire social and spiritual inquiry at the nexus of fact, the Black feminist imaginary, and Afrofuturism through visual and performance exhibition.

Her commitment to social transformation is informed by an intersectional framework that aims to expand the influence and impact of arts and culture on racial equity, gender + justice, and environmental literacy. T/IG @blublakwomyn