Wa Na Wari creates space for Black ownership, possibility, and belonging through art, historic preservation, and connection.
We are a center for Black art and culture in Seattle’s historically redlined Central District neighborhood. Sited in a 5th-generation Black-owned home, Wa Na Wari:
Seattle’s Central District was 80% Black in the 1970s. Today, it is less than 14% Black. Seattle’s affordability crisis has eliminated spaces where Black artists can work, create, and live. Aging Black homeowners struggle to afford skyrocketing property taxes. Remaining Black residents experience isolation and economic hardship. Wa Na Wari addresses these community challenges in the following ways.
We provide space for Black artists to collaborate, exhibit their work, and network with other artists, collectors, and patrons. We pay Black artists, writers, curators, performers, and gallery sitters, and in so doing put money back into the regional Black creative economy. We present a new model for sustainable Black homeownership by financially supporting the elderly Black homeowner in whose home Wa Na Wari is located, and we regularly convene other Black homeowners to explore this model.
We are a center for Black art and culture in Seattle’s historically redlined Central District neighborhood. Sited in a 5th-generation Black-owned home, Wa Na Wari:
- Hosts rotating exhibits by local and regional Black artists
- Provides a space for workshops, performances, and lectures
- Convenes changemakers, elders, youth, neighbors, and artists for collaboration, innovation, and community organizing.
- Operates an oral history studio for gathering and sharing the stories of Seattle’s historically Black Central District
Seattle’s Central District was 80% Black in the 1970s. Today, it is less than 14% Black. Seattle’s affordability crisis has eliminated spaces where Black artists can work, create, and live. Aging Black homeowners struggle to afford skyrocketing property taxes. Remaining Black residents experience isolation and economic hardship. Wa Na Wari addresses these community challenges in the following ways.
We provide space for Black artists to collaborate, exhibit their work, and network with other artists, collectors, and patrons. We pay Black artists, writers, curators, performers, and gallery sitters, and in so doing put money back into the regional Black creative economy. We present a new model for sustainable Black homeownership by financially supporting the elderly Black homeowner in whose home Wa Na Wari is located, and we regularly convene other Black homeowners to explore this model.
Our decision to site Wa Na Wari in a home is intentional. Out of financial need, the home has typically been rented as close to market rate as possible. This has put the home out of range for most black tenants, adding to the social and cultural process of gentrification. Until Now. Wa Na Nari supports a community elder while holding space for Black artists and storytellers in the neighborhood.
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Wa Na Wari opened its doors on April 5th, 2019. Since then, we have transformed a Black-owned rental home into an active Black art space.
The home was first purchased by Frank and Goldyne Green in 1951. From the early 1960s to 2013, it was occupied continuously by members of the extended Green Family, siblings, nieces, nephews, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and adopted family. In 2016, Inye Wokoma became the estate guardian and immediately embarked on two tasks, stabilizing his grandmother’s finances, to prevent the sale of her last home in the Central District, and mapping out possibilities for keeping the home in the family for perpetuity. Wa Na Wari is the first step towards securing that long term vision. |
