Meet our new Marketing & Communications Coordinator David Onabanjo
Comments Off on Meet our new Marketing & Communications Coordinator David OnabanjoJoin us in welcoming David Onabanjo to The LP Fam! David recently joined our team as the new Artist & Community . Read our short Q&A to get to know him!
In what neighborhood do you live?
West Harlem!
How did you first become connected to The LP, or hear about The LP?
At first, I found out about The LP on Instagram and have been following you guys for a while. I saw another position here years ago that I was interested in and was really impressed by the framing, intention-setting, and the existence of the position, so I knew I wanted to learn more about the organization overall.
Also, The LP kept coming up as this organization, resource, place, and thing people were talking about so highly in many different spaces. The more I learned, the more I knew I wanted to be involved!
So, what attracted you to The LP? How does working here relate to your professional
goals?
The LP feels like an honest organization, and that deeply resonates with how and where I want to be. For me, honesty means that the intention, activation of that intention, follow-through, and self-reflection all align, specifically in ways that are authentic, realistic, and generative. I appreciate the LP’s understanding of its role within a larger ecosystem, both formally and informally. This makes way for a genuine approach to being in community, and I’m always moved by personal and operational honesty.
I also kept running into, meeting, being in community with, and admiring people involved with the LP whose ethos, values, and practice I felt aligned with. I’m not one to reinvent the wheel, so I thought, “Let me get in on that too.”
Professionally, I’m interested in developing a vast toolkit to help activate art’s change-making potential, and I’ve been deeply invested in this concept for a while (and even built a major around it in college). I’m excited to continue building this toolkit with a focus on storytelling at the LP. I feel really grateful to be part of an organization that’s so ethos-aligned and operationalizes this ethos with such care.
Do you have your own creative practice? If so, tell us more!
Yes, my creative practice involves photography, film, installation, sound collage/design, and facilitation!
Can you tell us about an artist or project that has inspired you?
Legacy! Legacy! by Jamila Woods. When I first experienced it, this project reminded me of how expansive and diverse the ways we bring ancestors into our work can be. Jamila Woods rooted this album in embodiment, explicit naming, research, weight-holding & transformation, homage, and many other concepts, all of which have been (and will continue to be) everlastingly crucial practices for me.
What is your favorite film? Album? Food?
Favorite?? Yikes. It’s hard to say favorite, but an album that speaks to where I’m at right now is Blackstar by Amaarae. Film-wise, there are about 20 films I’ve seen at Blackstar Film Festival over the years that live in that space. I legally can’t answer for food.
Where do you do your laundry?
Right now, Miss Bubble! Or my friend’s house
In your opinion, why does art matter?
Any world I can imagine that involves my people and our people living full lives (and I might say any lives) involves a lot of art, so I think we’re stuck with it 🙂
What value do you most relate to at The LP? Why?
Be Propelled by Love. A lot of my orientation into art & advocacy involved a lot of language for what we were unlearning, avoiding, and fighting against, and I’ve always had a deep appetite for the relentless naming of what we are (re)learning and moving towards. A lot of what comes up for me falls under love when I think through it. Really unpacking and inspecting the building blocks for love (as a noun, verb, etc.) and what it takes to attend care speaks to a lot of what moves me. It’s beautiful to name that inquiry as the “thing” that activates us and moves our work forward.
David Onabanjo is an artist, communications specialist, facilitator, and youth educator born and raised in the Bronx, NY. In Communications, he aims to deepen our collective excitement for and acceptance of equity work as an ancestrally natural response to the unnatural conditions we find ourselves in. While doing so, he also honors the immense perseverance, bravery, skill, and vision (among many other qualities) it takes to do so. He originally worked in impact production in the documentary landscape, focusing on how to activate documentaries (and the filmmaking process) as tools for tangible change. He aims to help preserve gathering, care, organized (and disorganized) support, and imagination as integral parts of how we have lived.