COMRADES /
HALIMA CASSELLS
Halima Cassells was awarded a ZCCD Research Residency Fellowship to Zimbabwe for six weeks. ZCCD partnered with Njelele Art Station in Harare to amke this possible. The residency was supported by the Knights Foundation and Resonant Detroit, a Creative Many Michigan award. Halima Cassells is a Detroit-based artist/community advocate/gardener/mom that designs spaces for collaborative artistic expression, as well as projects that engender new economy practices. She exhibits nationally and runs the Free Market of Detroit hyper-locally. She has also led arts workshops and presented over the years at the Allied Media Conference, Cass Corridor Commons, N’Namdi Center for Contemporary Art, The Wright Museum, in several schools and churches, and her own backyard- literally.
◄ Halima with Nzinga at Great Zimbabwe, 2018.
Halima is committed to continual experimentation and finding ways of co-creating that are in harmony with the natural environment. As much as possible she incorporates found objects, discarded materials, and processes that are not toxic to the body nor harmful to our environment. Themes of her work often question the status quo and our capacity for reimagining the world through questioning how we perceive beauty and assign value.
▲ Halima clearing land for urban neighborhood garden
▲ Free Market collaborator, Cleo Anderson, helping a prticipant in an exchange.
◄ Halima Cassells’s Free Market Swap installation-intervention at Njelele Art Station in Harare, 2018.
▲ Harare Conversations: Valuing the Invaluable the National Gallery of Zimbabwe in Harare. A discussion on value and respect in artistic practice in the contexts of Detroit and Harare by Halima Cassells (Free Market of Detroit) and Zaza Muchemwa (Almasi Collaborative Arts) moderated by Fadzai Muchemwa, (Education Curator at the National Gallery of Zimbabwe). Picture by Dana Whabira.
◄ A conversation with Tendai Mupita at the Charles Wright Museum of African Art, Detroit, MI, 2019