photo courtesy of Nicole Combeau
Niki Franco (SHE/THEY) is a caribbean abolitionist community organizer, writer, podcaster, and facilitator of spaces for collective study. Seeking to disrupt the bureaucratic frameworks of academia and transactional ways in which relationships exist under capitalism, NIKI’S work experiments with truth-telling, radical history and thought, pleasure, joy, and revolutionary imagination.
NIKI curates educational and cultural programming that navigates the current urgency on global solidarity, environmental and ancestral preservation. NIKI IS ALSO THE HOST OF PODCAST SHOW, GETTING TO THE ROOT OF IT WITH VENUS ROOTS.
Inquiries/Bookings : info@venusroots.com
selected WORK + CONTRIBUTIONS
2023:
WRITER: op-ed: us media is failing the public on the crisis in gaza
essence magazine
MODERATOR: TENDERNESS: A BLACK QUEER MEDITATION ON SOFTNESS AND RAGE WITH ANNIKA HANSTEEN-IZORA
October 2023
ARTIST IN RESIDENCE: 2023 International thematic residency changing climate, santa fe art institute
MAY 2023-JUNE 2023
ARTIST IN RESIDENCE: rising: climate in crisis, A STUDIO IN THE WOODS
april 2023-MAY 2023
2022 :
fellow: civic media fellowship, university of southern california Annenberg Innovation Lab
SEPTEMBER 2022-MAY 2023
ARTIST IN RESIDENCE: TRANSIT workshop
EUREKA! House kingston, ny
august 2022
co-creator: short film, every step is a prayer
july 2021, nowness x superblue
WINNER: BEST EXPERIMENTAL FILM, MIAMI SHORT FILM FESTIVAL 2021
NOMINATION FOR BEST U.S. SHORT: PALM SPRINGS SHORT FILM FEST 2022
ARTIST IN RESIDENCE: the well, a collaboration between o,miami and the university of miami’s sylvester cancer center
april 2022-december 2022
MODERATOR: Resilient Cartographies: Everyday strategies of social justice that (re)emerged during pandemic times
march 19th, 2022, UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA, VANCOUVER CAMPUS
COMMUNITY PARTNER: UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI CENTER FOR GLOBAL BLACK STUDIES
GUEST LECTURER: Black and native solidarities
february 28th, 2022, university of miami
artist-organizer fellow 2022: open collective fOUNDATION
JANUARY 2022-DECEMBER 2022
SPEAKER + WORKSHOP FACILITATION: MLK WEEKEND
January 21st, 2022, NORTH CAROLINA STATE UNIVERSITY,
2021 :
KEYNOTE SPEAKER: better world by design conference (bwxd)
OCTOBER 1st, 2021, brown university x rhode island school of design
MODERATOR: 50TH ANNIVERSARY OF ATTICA PRISON UPRISING PANEL
SEPTEMBER 2021, MAYSLES DOCUMENTARY CENTER
co-creator: short film, every step is a prayer
july 2021, nowness x superblue
WINNER: BEST EXPERIMENTAL FILM, MIAMI SHORT FILM FESTIVAL 2021
DOCUMENTARY CONTRIBUTOR: VISIONS OF ABOLITION
july 2021, UCLA’S FEM MAGAZINE
GUEST SPEAKER: EARTH DAY, DISASTER CAPITALISM TEACH IN + Q&A
APRIL 22ND, 7P EST, Dartmouth COLLEGE,
moderator: in conversation with vijay prashad: the internationalist history of the communist manifesto
the peoples forum, FEBRUARY 17
GUEST SPEAKER: abolition or extinction
February 15 and february 17, Dartmouth COLLEGE,
moderator: a dIALOGUE ON pROTEST, pOLICING, AND dEMANDING THE FUTURE WE NEED
feb 2021, design museum magazine
2020 :
2020 FALL ARTIST RESIDENCY: UCLA Luskin Institute on Inequality and Democracy
moderator, curator: aBOLITIONIST PRAXIS: BRINGING OUR IMAGINATION TO LIFE
UCLA, LUSKIN INSTITUTE ON INEQUALITY AND DEMOCRACY
pANELIST: other swing voter, sep 30th
boston university, center for antiracist research
Fellow: 2020 INAUGURAL COHORT FOR AFROTECTOPIA FELLOWSHIP
Writer: New Dream Defenders Campaign Works to End Cash Bail System in Miami
Miami new times
Writer: essential workers at miami publix and trader joe’s stores want hazard pay
Miami new times
2019: