https://funtofuntofunto.com funto Mon, 08 Dec 2025 00:48:57 +0000 https://funtofuntofunto.com en https://funtofuntofunto.com/If-I-gather-here-and-shout Tue, 13 Aug 2024 22:41:46 +0000 funto https://funtofuntofunto.com/If-I-gather-here-and-shout <img width="3000" height="4500" width_o="3000" height_o="4500" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/addffe7a7b7fe76d8f6a46a47656775754e2404d587af43e4d1a125f0d59784e/cover-for-weby-1.jpg" data-mid="222408603" border="0" data-scale="100" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/addffe7a7b7fe76d8f6a46a47656775754e2404d587af43e4d1a125f0d59784e/cover-for-weby-1.jpg" /> Cover Design: Rissa Hochberger &amp; Abimbola Omojola If I Gather Here and Shout summons Yoruba divinatory rituals into a hospital room. Incantatory verses accumulate alongside personal and historical “figures” of illness and death to illuminate the tensions between legibility and meaning-making that emerge when an ill Black body is processed through a Western medical context. With intimate knowledge of how ancestral memory aches and sings in the body, Funto Omojola invokes a lamenting chorus in the ceremony of survival.Date: November 2024Publisher: Nightboat BooksFormat: PrintGenre: Poetry&nbsp; Order now from Nightboat Books Read an excerpt in The Bafler Reviews I read a lot of [If I Gather Here and Shout] as prayers and spells. . . flowing in and out through time, which is very beautiful to see. -Precious Okoyomon, Elephant A ritual, an invocation, a reclamation of narrative that draws from Yoruba traditions and interrogates the brutal legacies of Western medical practice. . . incantatory. -Kristen Kubečka, BOMB If I Gather Here and Shout gives us the beauty and terror that resist scientific objectivity, the “birth-body” morphing to evade all forms of capture. In a cosmology that perceives the living, dead, and unborn as a single unit, these poems show me that illness is only the universe seeking karmic equilibrium. -Angie Sijun Lou, The Whitney Review Omojola writes through song and swell, rhythmic beats and pulse. . . The poems are rhythmic, propulsive, pushing at and against medical crises and systemic violence across a prose-lyric staggered into clusters, each cluster delineated by the modesty of a single, black page.” -rob mclennan In If I Gather Here and Shout, “survival is joy,” a frenetic bliss that makes this debut pack an especially smarting punch. Omojola’s collection is not simply a declaration of resistance, but a reconfiguration of our relationship to disability and illness that enchants the body and reintroduces music to our souls thrumming for song. -Turi Sioson, ONLY POEMS PRAISE“Funto Omojola’s If I Gather Here and Shout is a startling, sculptural figuration of a wrenched body of “guts” “wounded wash,” “tubes,” “injection,” “hollow organ,” and “sac.” A myth making, a prayer ritual, a study of Yoruba symbology as the body remakes itself into monstrous capacity, yearning and yielding its poetics of drumming libretto. Omojola’s If I Gather Here and Shout is a fierce debut that worms its way right under the skin.”-Dawn Lundy Martin “In Funto Omojola’s If I Gather Here and Shout, joy and resistance and beauty show up in full force against the harsh light of systemic and medical forms of violence. With its rhythmically delicious syntax, it summons a new articulation of the emotional registers of rupture – it limns the language-music continuum, ultimately broadening our capacity to choreograph survival through art.” -Sawako Nakayasu“Feverish and palpitating over ritual ground ascend the intonations here that summon elders, twin daughters, and priests who, with spit and marrow, break the spell of history’s brutal vestiges. Bespoken, as if by Ifá divination, an ancestor village is delivered from the underworld syllables of stone and seed, for the counterpoint sake of the poet’s own birth-body and resounding victory—“ceremony is survival, survival is joy.” This hallowed song: a revelation.” -Roberto Tejada “This collection, an authoritative meditation on human interactions with spirit and machine is itself a talking drum reminding us that everything is ceremony, including our bodies. Indeed, the body’s ill wellness and well illness—the “birth-body,” the “non dead-ing body,” the “premonition-ing body”. . . the body in its material wholeness of flesh, bowels, hair, marrow…its bodily functions of swallowing, birthing, rotting, drooling; and fallible and malleable gender—are all pulsing on these pages. Reader, in Omojola’s world, you become part of We, village, where the past and future meet and coexist in our present. We are all inquirers, driven by this urgent and contemplative book to continue to explore, because survival is joy.”-Rosamond S. King https://funtofuntofunto.com/Performance-Sound Mon, 08 Dec 2025 00:48:57 +0000 funto https://funtofuntofunto.com/Performance-Sound it’s an honor to be here, here i am an honor to be: a mad man ︎ Dia Chelsea, New York October 2025&nbsp; it’s an honor to be here, here I am an honor to be: a mad man (2025) is a new participatory text, sound, and performance piece that draws on both non-Western understandings of madness and traditions of invocation in the Black church. Writer, performer, and visual artist Funto Omojola invites the audience to gather for a moment of collaborative processing. Designed to be a space of permission and consideration at a time when social realities are filled with breakage and rupture, participants are encouraged to move, sing, recite, and envision other ways of being in response to the performance score. <img width="4500" height="3000" width_o="4500" height_o="3000" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/ef5463efe9052451b53ae797b054d86d321384b3e9c0cc170f92bb617e4dac15/Don_Stahl_Funto-Omojola-071.jpg" data-mid="241545252" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/ef5463efe9052451b53ae797b054d86d321384b3e9c0cc170f92bb617e4dac15/Don_Stahl_Funto-Omojola-071.jpg" /> <img width="4500" height="3000" width_o="4500" height_o="3000" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/40910b21ea9d39795377b703e1091ee5527e73bb6d5ba789daae8a1e137df5cb/Don_Stahl_Funto-Omojola-292.jpg" data-mid="241545339" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/40910b21ea9d39795377b703e1091ee5527e73bb6d5ba789daae8a1e137df5cb/Don_Stahl_Funto-Omojola-292.jpg" /> <img width="4500" height="3000" width_o="4500" height_o="3000" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/fc6bcd6dfaf3edb0d08f5ee2ac6b2a8b67da9e7dae3ccface0d295a062556fe6/Don_Stahl_Funto-Omojola-241.jpg" data-mid="241545255" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/fc6bcd6dfaf3edb0d08f5ee2ac6b2a8b67da9e7dae3ccface0d295a062556fe6/Don_Stahl_Funto-Omojola-241.jpg" />︎︎ ︎ BA ︎ 2220 Arts + Archives, CA 2024 Light Field presents: Expanded Poetry An evening with five sets of cross-disciplinary performances and readings, featuring new works by Will Alexander, Jessika Kenney, and Eyvind Kang; Tongo Eisen-Martin; Syd Staiti and Jake Lichter; Funto Omojola; and Samuel Breslin and Brendan Glasson. <img width="3200" height="2066" width_o="3200" height_o="2066" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/a7fee5004cae7014e9390fc2db976a1308f40a8bfcade06753a8950cdfe35d9f/Screenshot-2026-01-26-at-2.11.28PM.png" data-mid="243988531" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/a7fee5004cae7014e9390fc2db976a1308f40a8bfcade06753a8950cdfe35d9f/Screenshot-2026-01-26-at-2.11.28PM.png" /> an open mouth/an open stomach screaming through a machine ︎ FIELDNOTES 2022 On a Dundun drum, I play Yoruba translations of medical records that document the surgical procedure that led to my subsequent chronic diagnosis. The initial medical records have not been altered except through translation. The Dundun, which imitates the Yoruba tonal language, is an hourglass-shaped talking drum with strings connected to the two surfaces of the drum that change the tone of the sounds the instrument produces.&nbsp; Li -- -- &nbsp; https://funtofuntofunto.com/Art Fri, 11 Mar 2022 00:36:12 +0000 funto https://funtofuntofunto.com/Art ono ile da/the way of the house is good&nbsp;︎ Dia Chelsea, New York October 2025&nbsp; Screening as part of It’s an honor to be here, here I am an honor to be: a mad man (2025). <img width="3454" height="1934" width_o="3454" height_o="1934" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/e146157f26c7c6173ff3a5d778ddb225371dfd66820014656c87c18ff3c558b5/Screenshot-2025-12-07-at-12.36.50PM.png" data-mid="241532996" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/e146157f26c7c6173ff3a5d778ddb225371dfd66820014656c87c18ff3c558b5/Screenshot-2025-12-07-at-12.36.50PM.png" /> Ono ile da/The way of the home is good, single-channel video, Dia Chelsea, 2025. --︎︎ ︎this my whole hole whole hole this still little me me me&nbsp;︎ A.I.R Gallery, New York May 25 - June 23, 2024 A.I.R Gallery is pleased to announce this my whole hole whole hole this still little me me me, a multimedia exhibition by 2023–2024 Fellow Funto Omojola. In the exhibition, photographic portraits are collected alongside bodily artifacts, like the artist’s hair, to create a reliquary for a pillaged body. Black-and-white self-portraits, in which the artist often appears blurred and distorted, are shown alongside photo album-sized images of the artist’s family in their home space. Informed both by Yoruba understandings of illness as well as violent, colonial medical understandings of disease, Omojola considers what is left after a marked body has been despoiled or wounded, as well as what emerges when their family’s histories of ailment and indisposition are processed through Western belief systems, and arrive at Western institutions as artifacts framed for intimate review and revisit. <img width="6422" height="4281" width_o="6422" height_o="4281" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/6d3ba6393f11fad270beaf3b9476cf35d6874d3fbf60a6df3c83864fb8a01a44/240529_AIR-Gallery_G2_01-1.jpg" data-mid="241532990" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/6d3ba6393f11fad270beaf3b9476cf35d6874d3fbf60a6df3c83864fb8a01a44/240529_AIR-Gallery_G2_01-1.jpg" /> Installation View. A.I.R. Gallery, 2024. <img width="6511" height="4341" width_o="6511" height_o="4341" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/e581bb50de0bbf87b1196f4218e8bf8b116b4087fbeb7b3e8503a2c12a0f9fbd/240529_AIR-Gallery_G2_02-1.jpg" data-mid="241532991" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/e581bb50de0bbf87b1196f4218e8bf8b116b4087fbeb7b3e8503a2c12a0f9fbd/240529_AIR-Gallery_G2_02-1.jpg" /> ]Installation View, A.I.R. Gallery, 2024. <img width="5530" height="4147" width_o="5530" height_o="4147" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/d945e031afd4d6996af7e1b59f7bfa43e7bdd62f3a58810d6aebd4f31835c9ae/240529_AIR-Gallery_G2_04-1.jpg" data-mid="241532993" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/d945e031afd4d6996af7e1b59f7bfa43e7bdd62f3a58810d6aebd4f31835c9ae/240529_AIR-Gallery_G2_04-1.jpg" /> Installation View, A.I.R. Gallery, 2024. <img width="6591" height="4394" width_o="6591" height_o="4394" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/54de73e92adbeab4c36edd37528e219ec97a8791607aae0eea386a948ec42327/240529_AIR-Gallery_G2_06-1.jpg" data-mid="241532989" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/54de73e92adbeab4c36edd37528e219ec97a8791607aae0eea386a948ec42327/240529_AIR-Gallery_G2_06-1.jpg" /> Installation View, A.I.R. Gallery,&nbsp;2024. -- Tend ︎ Parent Company Gallery, New York&nbsp;2024&nbsp; Parent Company is pleased to announce the inaugural show in our new location in the basement of 154 East Broadway. The group exhibition entitled Tend, features works by Nora Chellew, beck haberstroh, Carly Mandel, Sara Murphy, Funto Omojola, and Mierle Laderman Ukeles. The exhibition is about care, or the lack of care, shown towards our bodies. It is about the love and violence that is inflicted on our bodies and about the time spent enacting care and bodily labor. The subjects in Funto Omojola’s photographs are almost painfully contained. In mother of the priest i come to beg i the subject's head is tucked under their shirt. The resulting image alludes to a decapitated form, lying prone in a field. Informed by both Yoruba understandings of illness as well as violent, colonial medical conceptions of disease, Omojola considers what is left after a marked body has been despoiled or wounded. &nbsp; <img width="2000" height="1333" width_o="2000" height_o="1333" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/47b564228191c0d9f69937690d9aff575b55ba55f42e9d19a81516e2c56c7835/20240807_ParentCo4480_Web.jpg" data-mid="216173574" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/47b564228191c0d9f69937690d9aff575b55ba55f42e9d19a81516e2c56c7835/20240807_ParentCo4480_Web.jpg" />Installation View, Parent Company Gallery, 2024. <img width="1333" height="2000" width_o="1333" height_o="2000" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/dbcf8d329fc974ce2d5dc3a84549a9602cae3253e815a33da51bcb28ccc25b1b/20240807_ParentCo4415_Web.jpg" data-mid="216173576" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/dbcf8d329fc974ce2d5dc3a84549a9602cae3253e815a33da51bcb28ccc25b1b/20240807_ParentCo4415_Web.jpg" /> Installation View: (L) Untitled, Archival inkjet print, 24 x 20 inches, 2022. (R) Untitled, Archival inkjet print, 24 x 20 inches, 2022. Parent Company Gallery, 2024. -- mother of the priest, i come to beg ︎&nbsp; UBS Gallery, Red Hook&nbsp;2022&nbsp; <img width="1667" height="2500" width_o="1667" height_o="2500" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/7aa60ed8f82e4fbdbf19c94c31ff889840f5f743f749a92a10280fe9ed4fe7b8/Image-5_FUNTO.jpg" data-mid="154657032" border="0" alt="this is a reminder. " data-caption="this is a reminder. " src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/7aa60ed8f82e4fbdbf19c94c31ff889840f5f743f749a92a10280fe9ed4fe7b8/Image-5_FUNTO.jpg" /> Installation View. Archival inkjet prints, found frames, Kanekalon hair, artist’s hair, artist’s mother’s hair, industrial carpet, canola oil, mud, and shoe. UBS, Red Hook, 2022. <img width="2000" height="1356" width_o="2000" height_o="1356" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/e90f606a88db4b98befe34f9b014eb78f92f10bcc9d862830b10ffb58de2b9d5/Omojola-6.jpeg" data-mid="216173737" border="0" alt="this is a reminder for sureeeeeeeeee" data-caption="this is a reminder for sureeeeeeeeee" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/e90f606a88db4b98befe34f9b014eb78f92f10bcc9d862830b10ffb58de2b9d5/Omojola-6.jpeg" />Installation View. Archival inkjet prints, found frames, Kanekalon hair, artist’s hair, artist’s mother’s hair, industrial carpet, canola oil, mud, and shoe. UBS, Red Hook, 2022. <img width="7360" height="4912" width_o="7360" height_o="4912" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/ca17330eeb820558eff9781d1bd73dcc04c6839d82706ecf44aa9bbf536030c0/_DSC7429.jpg" data-mid="150664743" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/ca17330eeb820558eff9781d1bd73dcc04c6839d82706ecf44aa9bbf536030c0/_DSC7429.jpg" />Untitled, Archival inkjet print in found wooden frame, 20 x 24 inches, 2022. <img width="7360" height="4912" width_o="7360" height_o="4912" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/0ac5606417880e4b0b11e87abed56a7dfdd707bdfe9fc8adae8d3e7a029fa4d2/_DSC7362.jpg" data-mid="150656863" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/0ac5606417880e4b0b11e87abed56a7dfdd707bdfe9fc8adae8d3e7a029fa4d2/_DSC7362.jpg" /> Installation View (from left to right): Untitled, 30 x 24 inches, Untitled, 20 x 16 inches, Untitled, 24 x 20 inches. Archival inkjet prints, 2022. <img width="7360" height="4912" width_o="7360" height_o="4912" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/943c4eb0d234dd59b183ef7d029bd489b0dae5a8734bfc57a1ed56e27be8ecc0/_DSC7453.jpg" data-mid="150656861" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/943c4eb0d234dd59b183ef7d029bd489b0dae5a8734bfc57a1ed56e27be8ecc0/_DSC7453.jpg" /> Installation View.&nbsp;Untitled, archival inkjet print (14 x 11 inches), Kanekalon hair, artist’s hair, artist’s mother’s hair, industrial carpet, canola oil, mud, and shoe, 2022. <img width="7360" height="4912" width_o="7360" height_o="4912" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/91089723e8c601d1e5e5089c0566cccca56dfcc6c424bc8ae5241599390b95e3/_DSC7421.jpg" data-mid="150656854" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/91089723e8c601d1e5e5089c0566cccca56dfcc6c424bc8ae5241599390b95e3/_DSC7421.jpg" /> Detail. Kanekalon hair, artist’s hair, artist’s mother’s hair, industrial carpet, canola oil, mud, and shoe. UBS, Red Hook, 2022. &nbsp; <img width="7360" height="4912" width_o="7360" height_o="4912" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/f3caac1af6bf0328ba37ebb958371a50784ebb37cd53260c955c0ead89e71ac0/Omojola-10-4.JPG" data-mid="216173568" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/f3caac1af6bf0328ba37ebb958371a50784ebb37cd53260c955c0ead89e71ac0/Omojola-10-4.JPG" /> Installation view. Bard Chapel, Red Hook, 2022. https://funtofuntofunto.com/BABAS Wed, 03 Dec 2025 23:11:25 +0000 funto https://funtofuntofunto.com/BABAS BABAS is a sound and performance duo of Nigerian artists Funto and Tosin Omojola. Their work draws from west-african folk melodies, wéré/juju music and Yoruba worship music videos. They’ve presented work at/done projects with Dia Art Foundation, Stone Circle Theatre, Deli Radio at Recess Art, Radio Alhara and Boston Symphony Hall, among others. BABAS at Stone Circle TheatreNovember 5, 2025 https://funtofuntofunto.com/Info-News Wed, 28 Dec 2022 19:23:05 +0000 funto https://funtofuntofunto.com/Info-News Funto Omojola is a Nigerian-American writer, performer, and visual artist. Omojola has received fellowships from MacDowell, Cave Canem Foundation, Millay Arts, the Poetry Project, and has done projects with Dia Chelsea, Gladstone Gallery, A.I.R. Gallery, Silver Eye Center for Photography, and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, among others. Along with their sister, they are part of the Nigerian vocal and performance duo BABAS. Omojola holds an MFA from the Milton Avery School of the Arts at Bard College. ︎ funtofuntofunto@gmail.com C.V. available upon request.&nbsp; PRESS Elephant BOMB Magazine Hyperallergic Document Journal NEWS ︎︎︎ Launch of Valerie Hsiung’s The pedestrian at Dear Friend Books&nbsp;Friday, July 10 @7pm Readers and performers include Cecilia Vicuña, Rachelle Rahmé, me, Rachel James, Bo Hwang, Brian Alarcon and Neshat Sadatmansoori. ︎&nbsp;BABAs performance at Pageant June 11 + 12, 2026. See details here.&nbsp; ︎&nbsp;Allen Ginsberg Centennial at Poetry Project June 3, 2026 8pm The Sanctuary at St Mark's Church I’ll be reading! It will be livestreamed as well! See details here.︎&nbsp;Whitney Review Issue 007 I reviewed The pedestrian by Valerie Hsiung. Valerie is a genius and it was an honor. Get a copy of the review here and get a copy of Valerie's book here. ︎&nbsp;Poetry is Famous Reading alongside Tessa Bolsover, J.M Cox, Cris Garcia, Kelsey Legg and Morgan Levine May 7, 2026 7pm Topos Too bookstore ︎&nbsp;Reading Boog City 19.5 Arts Festival Feb 15, 2026 12 - 7 pm Block Hill Station 718 5th Ave Park Slope, Brooklyn ︎&nbsp;Reading with EMDASH series Jan 29, 2026 @ river office 47 thames st Alongside Jimin Seo, Francisco Marquez and Galeana ︎ Reading with Unnamed series Jan 24, 2026&nbsp; 7pm Alongside Stine An, Terrence Arjoon, Yuyi Chen, Reid Kurkerewicz and Maya Martinez ︎ Performance at Recess Art Jan. 8, 2026 7pm Join us for GHOST BARRELS, the closing performance of the Sick Center at Recess. Artists lu yim, funto omojola, and Anna RG premiere an experimental work that invites audiences into a fragmentary mapping—circling sound, history, and imagination to get closer to something just out of reach. RSVP here. ︎ Reading at Pioneer Works Press Play Fair Dec, 13 2025, 2pm ︎ Reading with Lauren Cook at Artist Space with Segue reading series Nov, 15, 2025 5-7pm Curated by Nightboat. ︎ BABAS performance at Stone Circle Theatre November 5, 2025 Star &amp; Stan, Laurel Atwell, Alex Tatarsky, and BABAS are&nbsp; here to make you stronger. An evening of legends and icons offer the nourishing sip of spectacle to fuel your lust for life. Produced by Nola Sporn Smith. ︎ it’s an honor to be here, here i am an honor to be: a mad man ︎ Oct 24, 2025 at Dia Chelsea, New York it’s an honor to be here, here I am an honor to be: a mad man (2025) is a new participatory text, sound, and performance piece that draws on both non-Western understandings of madness and traditions of invocation in the Black church. Writer, performer, and visual artist Funto Omojola invites the audience to gather for a moment of collaborative processing. RSVP here. ︎ Reading at Good Press in Glasgow Oct 9, 2025 Alongside Nat Raha and Adrien Howard ︎ Signing at Printed Matter's New York Art Book Fair Sept 13, 2025 @ 2pm ︎ Reading at NIGHT CLUB 101 Sept. 3, 2025 @ 7pm Alongside Genevieve Goffman, Izzy Casey, Joel Dean and Juliet Geffman-Randazzo ︎ Residency at Shandaken: Storm King I’ll be in residency at Shandaken: Storm King during the month of August. ︎ Residency at Cave Canem I’ll be at the Cave Canem 2025 retreat in Greensburg PA. ︎ David Wojnarowicz Memories That Smell Like Gasoline Launch June 5, 2025, 7 pm @ the Francis Kite Club in the LES Alongside Nan Goldin, Amy Scholder, Karen Finley, and Sur Rodney︎&nbsp;Light Field presents: Expanded Poetry Sat Mar 29, 8PM @ 2220 Arts + Archives An evening with five sets of cross-disciplinary performances and readings, featuring new works by Will Alexander, Jessika Kenney, and Eyvind Kang; Tongo Eisen-Martin; Syd Staiti and Jake Lichter; Funto Omojola; and Samuel Breslin and Brendan Glasson. ︎&nbsp;Nightboat’s Frontlist Reading Thursday, March 27, 6-8:30PM @ Stories Books &amp; Café, 1716 Sunset Blvd, Los Angeles, CA. Readings by me, Aditi Machado, Aurora Mattia, Bianca Rae Messinger, Dawn Lundy Martin, Eleni Stecopoulos, Julian Carter, Jzl Jmz, Laura Moriarty, Marcus Clayton, Mónica de la Torre, nat raha, Rosie Stockton and Samiya Bashir. ︎ Signing at AWP, Nightboat booth #335 Thursday March 27 @ 1PM ︎&nbsp;KGB Monday Night Poetry Monday, March 24, 2025 - 7 PM @ KGB BAR 85 E. 4th St. With Gillian Conoley and Julie Carr. Hosted by John Deming, Jada Gordon, Susan Lewis, Tyler Allen Penny and Selena SpierI.&nbsp; ︎&nbsp;I woke up dreaming Saturday, February 8, 2025 - 4PM @ A.I.R. Gallery Held in conjunction with I woke up dreaming., the 16th A.I.R. Biennial, this reading features Aristilde Kirby , Funto Omojola, and Daisuke Shen. ︎&nbsp;BABAS at Deli Radio, Recess Art January 17, 2025, 3:00 – 7:30PM An evening of DJ sets by Elijah Prince and BABAS, and an artist talk by Res Julian. ︎&nbsp;The 51st Annual New Year's Day Marathon at the Poetry Project January 1, 2025 I'll be during the first hour, hosted by Stacy Szymaszek and Nicole Wallace, from 1-2pm. During this hour, I'll read with Pamela Sneed, Morgan Võ, Emily Johnson, Marcella Durand, Filip Marinovich, Alex Cuff,Christopher Rey Pérez, Jennifer Firestone, Mariana Valencia, Mónica de la Torre &amp; Hans Tammen, Greg Masters, and Marcos de la Fuente. ︎ Story Story Time Time: Listening and Conversation with Funto Omojola and YATTA Thursday, December 5, 2024 at CARA Join us at CARA for the joint launch of If I Gather Here and Shout by Funto Omojola and PALM WINE by YATTA. This evening will include an improvisational performance by both artists, followed by a conversation with writer and radio host Riel Bellow. RSVP HERE. ︎ Upstate book launch: Funto Omojola &amp; Samiya Bashir at Flow Chart Foundation November 16 @ 5:00 pm - 6:30 pm @ Flowchart I’ll be joined by the poet Samiya Bashir. We’ll both read from our works, then join in conversation, on the occasion of Nightboat Books publishing If I Gather Here and Shout. Tickets here. ︎ NYC Pre-launch at Molasses bookstore Tuesday, November 12, 2024, 8pm Join me for a pre-launch of IF I GATHER HERE AND SHOUT, with Precious Okoyomon and Tobi Kassim. ︎&nbsp;Carie Mae Weems Remember to Dream: Election Day Reading November 5, 2024, 3pm - 12am at Gladstone Gallery I’ll be reading from my book as part of this election day reading organized by Precious Okoyomon, Vincent Katz and Brian Degraw, with Rirkrit Tiravanija + Co. and Spiral Theory Test Kitchen. This all-day event will be a refuge, an oasis, a temporary autonomous zone in the spirit of Hakim Bey. The durational program of readings, live music, and food will materialize through the participation of artists, poets, performers, and composers united by a shared sense of defiance, hope, and purpose. See here. ︎ Beyond Borders Mixtape for Radio Alhara October 24-27, 2024 As part of a fundraiser for Palestinians, Dolce Stil Criollo has curated a 3-hour mixtape of poetry and sound art. The mixtape will broadcast with Bethlehem-based Radio Alhara on October 26th, at 11am EST and will feature a piece by the BABAS aka me and my sister. And on October 27th, from 11am-5pm, Fouta Harissa and Dolce Stil Criollo will be at Storm Books and Candy in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, with t-shirts and scarves for sale. At 3pm, they will host a small program of performances by Grace Villamil, Andrew Riad, Jordan Topiel Paul, and Funto &amp; Tosin aka BABAS. ︎&nbsp;CLOSE READINGS: The Flow Chart Foundation Thursday, February 22, 3 pm (Virtual Event) I’ll be leading a virtual group thinking-and-reading-through of a poem by Myung Mi Kim followed by a short reading of my own work. Register here. ︎ Ritual &amp; Rupture: A Reading and Conversation February 22, 12 pm, Center for Intercultural Engagement at Northeastern University ︎ Publishing Expanded: Where Is Africa? Center for Art, Research and Alliances February 10, 4pm at CARA Reading and panel discussion with Mikael Awake, Moses Serubiri and Yayra Sumah, moderated by Matthew Shenoda. As a part of CARA’s first Publishing Expanded convening around the release of their new book, Where Is Africa. ︎ It Goes, It Goes: James Schuyler Centenary Celebration Saturday, November 4, 2023, 5 pm, Dia Chelsea I’ll be reading alongside Wayne Koestenbaum, Chad Morgan, Eileen Myles, Teline Trần, and others to be announced.︎ Coney Island “Wavewall”, organized by David Lindsay and Anonymous Gallery Saturday October 21, 2023 @2 pm with&nbsp;Geoffrey Mak, Drew Zebia, sgp and Ty Little ︎ Reading at Unnameable Books May 19, 2023 @7PM with Pamela Allen Brown, Alexis Gudding, Em Marie Kohl, Francisco Marquez, danilo machado, and Roz Naimi&nbsp; ︎ Reading for Segue Reading Series April 29, 2023, @Artists Space alongside writer and critic Jessica Lynne ︎ Poetry Project April 17, 2023 as part of The Poetry Project’s Spring reading series, alongside Yesenia Montilla, author of the astonishing Muse Found in a Colonized Body, tickets here. ︎ Reading at The Poetry Project’s New Year’s Day Marathon January 1, 2023, between 10 and 11PM as part of The Poetry Project’s 49th Annual New Year’s Day Marathon, alongside a host of amazing poets and writers and artists, tickets here. ︎ https://funtofuntofunto.com/funto Fri, 11 Mar 2022 00:36:13 +0000 funto https://funtofuntofunto.com/funto &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; https://funtofuntofunto.com/taysa-test-bootstrap Thu, 23 Feb 2023 23:07:24 +0000 funto https://funtofuntofunto.com/taysa-test-bootstrap FUNTO is a Nigerian-American poet, performer, and visual artist based in New York. Their first book, components of a child’s destiny &amp; there’s a party in the canopy &amp; i make an oil painting of a bribe, is forthcoming from Nightboat Books in 2024. They are a 2022-2023 Emerge-Surface-Be Fellow with the Poetry Project and a 2023 Cave Canem Fellow. FUNTO holds an MFA from the Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts at Bard College and is the founding editor of ẹwà journal, an online literary journal that publishes work exclusively by immigrant writers. ︎ funtofuntofunto@gmail.com ︎︎︎May 2023 Millay Arts ResidencyI’ll be in residence at Millay for the month of May. ︎︎︎︎︎︎April 29, 2023 Reading for Segue Reading Series&nbsp;For the Segue reading series, I will be reading new work, alongside writer and critic Jessica Lynne. The event will take place at Artists Space in downtown Manhattan. Other 2023 Segue readers include Hannah Baer, Fred Moten, Wendy Vogel, and more. ︎︎︎︎︎︎March 6, 2022Reading with Yesenia MontillaAs part of The Poetry Project’s Spring reading series, I’ll be reading alongside Yesenia Montilla, author of the astonishing Muse Found in a Colonized Body. You can find tickets here. ︎January 1, 2023 Reading at The Poetry Project’s New Year’s Day Marathon I’ll be reading at The Poetry Project’s 49th Annual New Year’s Day Marathon alongside a host of amazing poets and writers and artists. I’ll be going on between 10 and 11 PM. You can find tickets here. ︎November/December 2022 Artist in Residence at MASS MoCAFor three weeks, I’ll be in residence at the Studios at MASS MoCA. ︎November 3, 2022 Exquisites ReadingI will be reading some new works in progress as part of the queer reading series, Exquisites. The reading will take place at Art Cafe &amp; Bar in Brooklyn. Also reading will be Natalia Rodriguez, Alexix Gudding, Kyle Carrero Lopez, and Liza Gonzalez. ︎October 25, 2022 Sound piece in FIELDNOTESFIELDNOTES has published my sound piece an open mouth/an open stomach screaming through a machine for the third issue of their audio series. You can listen here, along with great work from other contributors: Jaka Škapin and Pavel Radu, Sohyun Han and Alvarx del Fresno, Maíra Botelho, and Ruari Paterson-Achenbach and Sophie Marie Niang. ︎October 10, 2022 The Pizza's Poetry Party ReadingI'll be reading at Honey's in Brooklyn with Christopher Rey Perez, Amalle Dublon and Tenaya Nasser-Frederick for the Pizza's Poetry Party reading series, curated by Carolyn Ferrucci and Lara Carmen Hidalgo. ︎September 30, 2022 Reading at Gern I’ll be reading at Gern en regalia alongside M. Elizabeth Scott, Roxy Farman, Jen Fisher, Early Shinada, Kaur Alia Ahmed and Aristilde Kirby. ︎May 9, 2022 Brooklyn Rail’s THE-NEW-SOCIAL-ENVIRONMENTI will read to close a conversation between artist Tavares Strachan and Rail Artseen Editor Amanda Gluibizzi for Brooklyn Rail’s 555th NEW-SOCIAL-ENVIRONMENT series.