Image courtesy Liz Barney, 2024.
Imbolc is an intradependent network of events that honors the start of spring with music, food, and gathering on the first weekend of February. The weekend-long celebration offers a warm counterpoint to the cold isolation the end of winter often brings, and provides intimate platforms for musicians, deejays, poets, chefs, community organizers, cultural workers, and neighbors to present works-in-progress, left-field paths, and care practices.
Imbolc, literally translating to “ewe’s milk” in Gaelic, is also the name of the Pagan festival indigenous to the Gaelic and Celtic peoples across Ireland and Scotland. It celebrates the godess Brigid, and is held on the day between the winter solstice and spring equinox (often February 1st-4th). During the advent of Christianity and the colonization of Ireland and Scotland by the English, the festival was Christianized, sanitized, and stripped of its ancient roots celebrating the divine feminine, the return of the Sun and Spring, the first harvest, poetry, fire, healing, queer theory, and land-based care practices.
The second Imbolc happened across February 1-4, 2024. Four public events and three private events were held in Detroit, MI and Ann Arbor, MI. An estimated total of 250 people attended the weekend events. Press and events are listed below.
Press: Detour Detroit, Metro Times Detroit, Detroit Free Press.
Steep at the Schvitz
Friday, February 2
4:00 – 7:00pm
8295 Oakland Ave, Detroit, MI 48211
Chicago-based poet Maura Ford and integrative change worker Megan Szurgot led a 12-person group visit to the Schvitz Health Club, a local Detroit sauna, cold plunge, and massage center.
Imbolc Candlelight Ritual & Heart Circle
At the Attic
1741 Calumet Street, Detroit, MI 48208
Friday, February 2nd, 7-9pm
Hosted by Matthew Shur (Detroit, MI) and Simon Gregor (Detroit, MI)
Matthew Shur is a breathwork and tantra practitioner, sex and intimacy coach, and avid gardener based in Detroit, MI. He coaches adult film performers on set worldwide on how to embody consent, connect with their authentic pleasure, and communicate effectively.
Dr Simon Gregor is a British-born meditation teacher, Reiki practitioner and explorer of Taoism, now based in Detroit. He is also a poet, and loves to explore how language can help shape meaningful ritual.
Collective Collage
Hosted by Immaculate Conception Collective
Ann Arbor District Library Downtown Branch (Freespace room)
343 S 5th Ave, Ann Arbor, MI 48104
Saturday, February 3 12-2pm
Reclaim the holiday and celebrate the coming of spring with Immaculate Conception Collective. Visitors will have the opportunity to collage, share music, and connect across their community in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Immaculate Conception Collective is a music collective centering the creative expression of women and gender-nonconforming people and celebrating the feminine in all its forms. They host the mixtape series Fruits of Our Labor.
Dinner for Imbolc
Saturday, February 3rd, 2024
6:00 – 9:00pm
3954 Avery Street, Detroit Michigan
35 cultural workers, artists, elders, and neighbors attended a dinner hosted by designer Sofía Davila and Dr. Mark Bornstein. Guests were served traditional Puerto Rican and Midwest food, including cassava and corn pastelones, rice and beans, avocados, potato salad, and flan made by artist and educator Juan Carlos Rodriguez Rivera.
‘Oto Synthesis
At Periodicals
4892 Grand River Ave, Detroit, MI 48208
February 3, 2024
7pm-11pm
Live sets by Fana’ (New York, NY) and Maro Kariya (The Bunker, IT; Detroit, MI)
Audio installation by Weather Citizen (Detroit, MI)
Fana’ is a multimedia artist, producer and DJ. She is known for her albums on labels such as Detroit’s Crisis Urbana and Kolkata’s Coping Strategies and for founding Disco Paradiso, a retro-futurist party held in Cleveland, OH. Her productions focus on ancestral longing and the reclamation of heritage through sound.
Maro Kariya (PhD, Chemistry) is an audiovisual artist and scientist who explores sensing within the natural world, reflections of its change, and presence. They approach sound and visual art as a means of interpreting the environments they encounter, embodying the idea of 'otodojo' (a sound place for learning). They have released 12 albums including records with labels such as The Bunker NY (2023), Mesma (2022), Perimeter Junk (2022), Unimatrix Zero (2022), and Acid Camp (2019). They have showcased their audiovisual works at Tokyo Tower (2022), Cranbrook Art Museum (2022), Mix Gallery in Ithaca (2023), Artists for Plants (2021), The Soil Factory (2021), and a digital community built with Ryu Goto, Otodojo Nodes (2022). They launched Microtones (microtones.info) in 2018, an electronic music event series and label in Ithaca, NY. They graduated from Cornell University with a doctoral degree in chemistry & chemical biology and discovered and characterized a series of novel sulfolipids.
Weather Citizen is an audiovisual installation artist whose work includes music composition and sound design, film scoring, in-depth perceptual and cognitive science research analysis, media design and production, editing and recording, and generative audio system design.
Periodicals is a magazine shop and concept store. They offer a range of items thoughtfully selected to help reenergize a creative mind, including skincare and beauty products, fragrances, tinctures, vitamins, candles, writing tools, and more.
Ritual Rave
February 3, 2024 10pm-6am
4806 Avery St Detroit MI 48208
A rave was held in honor of and reflection of the fire festivals and bonfires Imbolc has traditionally encorporated. The lineup included four Detroit-based deejays, including the debut of Autotroph (James Allen and Miguel Cisneros), Dretraxx, Gold-E-Loxx, DJ Etta, Bale Defoe, and Endash alongside Miami-based deejay Fabiola. Tarot was read by musician Lulu Ferrer.
Imbolc Community Creation Session
27th Letter Bookstore
3546 Michigan Ave, Detroit, MI 48216
February 4, 2024
4pm-8pm
Hosted by King Sophia
Featuring compositions by Ackeem Salmon, Indira Edwards, King Sophia, Michael Smith, Laina Martin, and more
King Sophia is a cellist of 15 years with a Bachelors in Cello Performance from University of Miami: Frost School of Music. King is also a vocalist, an electric guitarist, a songwriter and composer, an arranger, a conductor, a performer and recording artist, a teacher, and above all, a student and a catalyst for change. King has collaborated with Arthur Hanlon and Meta, and was previously the President of the Black Musicians Caucus at University of Miami, and founded the Black Arts Ensemble to give a platform to young Black musicians while showcasing Black compositions. Under my leadership, the Black Arts Ensemble performed at Street Stages in collaboration with Olympia Arts Miami and at a Miami-Dade Democrat event headlined by Mayor Daniella Levine Cava. We also opened for multiple GRAMMY™️ award-winning trumpeter Etienne Charles and his band Creole Soul at the Historic Black Archives Lyric Theater.
Ackeem Salmon is originally from Kingston, Jamaica, and now resides in Detroit, MI. He is a multimedia artist who explores photography with traditional painting and drawing techniques. Ackeem received his BFA from the College for Creative Studies with honors in Photography and Fine Art. He in depth explores how cultural history affects people's present-day identities, and how these identities connect through human commonality and empathy. Internationally recognized for his work, Ackeem has exhibited his work at places such as the Galerie Joseph in Paris, France, the Val de Vie estate in Cape Town, South Africa, Sotheby’s Auction House in New York, and a list of other prominent galleries and venues. Notably, Ackeem is a 2023 awardee in Interdisciplinary Work from the Kresge Foundation and is a former art teacher and a 2021-2023 Teach for America Fellow within Detroit Public Schools.
27th Letter Bookstore is an independent bookstore in Southwest Detroit that strives to highlight historically underrepresented voices and narrative in all forms.
Imbolc morning (photograph), 2023.
The first Imbolc event was on 2.3.23 in Detroit at 4806 Avery Street, hosted by Daniel Sharp. It featured food and poetry from Chicago-based poet Maura Ford, custom tea blends from Fargo-based artist and curator Tessa Beck, and deejay sets from Detroit-based artists Alex DePorre, Patrick Vandenplas, Miguel Cisne, Crystal Cause, and James Allen. Each Imbolc weekend is on the first weekend in February. Every attendee received a membership card to attend the next year, with the ability to invite non-members the next.
Imbolc lunch: salad, carrots, celery, yarrow and camomile tea (photograph), 2023.
Imbolc offering: lights, paper installation, space heater, and deejay booth (photograph), 2023.
Imbolc offering: lights, paper installation, space heater, and deejay booth (photograph), 2023.
