KIN: A Festival of Memory and Imagination by Kinfolk Tech Opening Celebration

This October, Kinfolk Tech will transform the WSA into a living archive—a constellation of portals into memory, imagination, and the stories that refuse to disappear.

We’re living through a moment of erasure by design—digitally, politically, environmentally. This exhibition is our cultural counter-spell: a space to slow down, reconnect, and resist disappearance. KIN will showcase the importance of the archive, giving people hands-on access to the stories, monuments, and knowledge necessary to reimagine our future.

An essential part of this exhibition is the experiential programming we’re offering thanks to our amazing partners and collaborators like you. We want KIN to be a space for communal experiences for rest and repair. This exhibition space will include…

Events and Communal Spaces
Weekly programs include musical and experimental performances, intergenerational conversations with artists, storytellers, and memory workers, and Community Imagination Workshops celebrating collective memory and world-building.

Reading Room & Archive
Curated by Tione Trice, founder of Of The Cloth, this space invites rest and curiosity. Visitors can explore books from the Black Radical Tradition, printed ephemera from FESTAC’77, rare selections from Baldwin’s own collections, and stories from Kinfolk Tech’s monument archive. Hands-on workshops will guide guests in engaging with archival materials, encouraging both research and reflection.

The Projection Room
An enclosed space for screening experimental films and multimedia, and intimate talkbacks

The Performance Space
A stage for musical and movement performances as well as panel-style discussions, acknowledging joy and movement as essential forms of resistance. Performances by Esperanza Spalding, Serpent With Feet, Yaya Bey, Ari Melenciano, Daniel Simmons and more.

The Meditation Room
A sanctuary for communal wellness, healing, and ancestral practices. Taking time to rest here is framed as an act of rebellion against systems of overwork, offering visitors a chance to reclaim power, honor humanity, and find joy and liberation.

Marketplace
A carefully curated boutique reimagining commerce as cultural exchange. In partnership with Blk Market Vintage, the shop offers works by Kinfolk Tech artists, limited-edition memorabilia, books, zines, textiles, artifacts, and apparel—each item an artifact of memory and connection.

Café
Food becomes another portal to memory. In the Kinfolk Café, curated by partner restaurants Cocina Consuelo, Teranga, and Aunts et Uncles, menus rooted in ancestral recipes and diasporic flavors nourish both body and spirit. Shared meals spark intergenerational dialogue, while a “living cookbook” invites visitors to exchange family recipes.