about

Ama Josephine Budge - Writer / Artist / Curator

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Ama Josephine Budge is a Speculative Writer, Artist, Curator and Pleasure Activist whose praxis navigates intimate explorations of race, art, ecology and feminism, working to activate movements that catalyse human rights, environmental evolutions and troublesomely queered identities. Ama is the recipient of the 2020 Local, International and Planetary Fictions Fellowship with Curatorial Frame (Helsinki) and EVA International (Limerick). Her research for this fellowship: Pleasurable Ecologies – Formations of Care: Curation as Future-building is an in-depth exploration of decolonial and intersectional curatorial care practices. The research acknowledges the entire ecosystem of socio-historical politics involved in curating contemporary art and cultural production.   Ama is also a member of Queer Ecologies 2020, initiator of the Apocalypse Reading Room project and Lead Artist on the MycoLective project with Chisenhale Studios and Feral Practice. 

Ama’s fiction has been published internationally including by Anathema Spec from the Margins, The Architectural Review, The Feminist Review, Consented Magazine and more. She is working on her first book: a speculative duology. 

Ama's installation works have been commissioned / exhibited by Casco Art Institute (Utrecht), Ankur Arts (Glasgow) and Other Futures Festival (Amsterdam). Ama is the co-founder of The Batty Mama queer black club & performance night, and initiator of Self Love and Ecstasy pleasure collective (aka SLAE). SLAE works to invoke power, pleasure, and healing with breath, touch and trust for self, community and planet. SLAE manifests predominantly with and for QTIABPOC (queer, trans, intersex, a-gender, Black, people of colour). 

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prior speaking engagements

Keynote Lecture at Fragments and Fractures Conference, Birkebeck (2020)

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Guest speaker at Mister Motley and ArtEZ stadium generale (2020)

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University of Minneapolis (2019)

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National Women’s Studies Association, San Francisco (2019)

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Keynote In Conversation with Professor Saidiya Hartman & Dr. Gail Lewis, The Art of Not Doing Conference, Birkbeck (2019)

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Keynote Lecture on Climate Colonialism, Glasgow School of Art (2019)

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Interrogating Archives, Birkbeck University (2019)

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The Colour Green Podcast with Baroness Lola Young, Julie’s Bicycle (2019)

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Queer-feminist Ecocriticism in Live Art & Visual Cultures, CUNTemporary (2019)

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The Future’s Venture Celebration: Provocation Weekender, Walk the Plank, Salford, (2019)

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Cyborgs, Wellcome Collection (2019)

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Josephine Budge and guest author Sara Saab, b.Dewitt Gallery (2019)

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Listening Legacies of Queerness, Science Fiction and Writing Gender: a reading group with Ama

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Feminist Futures for Turbulent Times: The legacies of Octavia E. Butler and Ursula K. Le Guin, UCL University (2019)

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Queer Black Performance Colloquiem, Oxford University (2019)

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Speculative Climate Stories Angela Chan and Ama Josephine Budge, Iniva (2019)

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The Apocalypse Reading Room: In Conversation with Jay Bernard, Free Word (2019)

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Keynote Lecture/Reading at Goldsmiths University, London (2018)

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Fugitive Feminisms, ICA, London (2018)

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Africa Utopia Festival, Southbank Centre, London (2018)

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Art & Activism, UCL, London (2018)

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Curatorial Care, Humanising Practices Conference, VIAD, Johannesburg (2018)

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Pleasuring the Visual, V&A Friday Late, London (2018)

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Rethinking Love, Sex and Desire, Consented at Birkbeck University, London (2018)

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Mothering Blackness, Autograph ABP, London (2017)

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Queer Grime Movements, Karnage at Uniqlo Tate Lates, London (2017)

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Black British Resistance, Take Back the City at Goldsmiths University (2017)

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Founder and Convener of I/Mages of Tomorrow anti-conference, Goldsmiths University (2017)

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Decolonising Feminism Conference, Wits University, Johannesburg (2016)

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London Feminist Conference, Hilton Hotel, London (2015)

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Women of the World Festival, Southbank Centre, London (2015)

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