FAF Collective creates Indianapolis events guide highlighting artists of color

An online arts and news publication that focuses on elevating Black, Brown and marginalized voices in Indianapolis’ arts community has created an events guide. Face A Face (prounounced Foss-Ah-Foss) Collective Co-founder and Editor Ariana Beedie talks with WFYI’s Terri Dee about the organization’s partnership with the Indy Arts Council and how Black history education can be achieved through the arts.

WFYI Reporter Terri Dee: Ariana, how do you see the importance of the collective partnering with the Indy Arts Council and when that idea was developing, what did the conversation focus on?

Ariana Beedie, FAF Collective Co-founder and Editor: It is incredibly important for FAF Collective to continue to elevate. Working with the Indy Arts Council has been an important step for us, and we're excited to continue to gain major partnerships this year. A lot of the conversation stemmed around them, tapping us to explain what we do best. So, they asked us to put something together, you know, highlighting what we see.

So, we looked for different events from local organizations and artists that we know and put together what interested us the most. It was cool to see people outside of who we knew as well. It was important to highlight events happening this month, and past February to continue on the celebration of Black Lives and Black history.

Dee: Share with us how necessary it is that the collective maintain its presence and grow after Black History Month ends.

Beedie: So FAF Collective is in its sixth year as an arts and culture publications. We've had many amazing years of events and stories, but we are ready to keep growing. We've had kind of a pandemic hiatus from doing events in person. But we're back with the poetry readings this year, as well as some fresh content on our website, new contributors and partnerships.

There isn't another arts and culture publication that does exactly what we do; steeping themselves in community. It’s an exciting time for us to shine and connect back with our community and people who have known us. We've connected with artists and tried to highlight artists in so many different areas and avenues. For example, poetry, reading, tapping some of the great poets that we know and saying, you know, come share your work; this is for you. Also, we publish different poets and short stories and articles. I write a lot of articles on highlighting artists, predominantly Black and Brown artists. We publish photography; that's just what we do. It is our bread and butter to support artists.

Dee: Does the FAF Collective seek community engagement and if so, in what ways is that done?

Beedie: Absolutely! I really do see FAF like the tea bag and the community the hot cup of water. We need each other to make that tea. Our work stems from community engagement. I mean, really, when I moved back to the city, I would start going to shows and see these amazing performances from artists that were my peers, and I wouldn't see any media. As a music journalist, I just thought that was a bit ridiculous, so that there was no one telling Black stories as well as a platform kind of dedicated to that. So, we stepped up and created this platform; from showing up and telling the stories that we felt needed to be told, doing community events, other workshops and facilitation efforts.

Without our community, we don't have anything. We're excited to continue those engagement efforts, hopefully as things open up and feel a little safer.

Dee: Arianna, thank you for your time this afternoon and for your information.

Beedie: Thank you.