Angel Shanel Edwards

Angel Shanel Edwards’ first solo exhibition, Mirror is not a metaphor, an Arts League artist-in-residence project in West Philly is running from April 3-24, 2026, with a closing reception on April 24th. The exhibition explores Black intimacy, vanity, and witness as practices of world-building and collective futurity. The closing reception will gather community members, including Black elders, queer and trans kin, disabled community members, and fellow artists, for a shared experience of reflection, celebration, and connection with the work, while also emphasizing safe, accessible gathering practices. As both a culmination of Angel's residency and their first solo exhibition, this opportunity represents a pivotal moment in their artistic development, strengthening their portfolio and deepening their capacity to create and sustain community-centered exhibition spaces in the future. The WOO grant will support Angel with professional photographic documentation of the exhibition, as well as supplies for the closing reception.

Angel Shanel Edwards’ first solo exhibition, "Mirror is not a metaphor," an Arts League artist-in-residence project in West Philly is running from April 3-24, 2026, with a closing reception on April 24th. The exhibition explores Black intimacy, vanity, and witness as practices of collective futurity. The closing reception will gather community members, including Black elders, queer and trans kin, disabled community members, and fellow artists, for a shared experience of reflection, celebration, and connection with the work, while also emphasizing safe, accessible gathering practices. As both a culmination of Angel's residency and their first solo exhibition, this opportunity represents a pivotal moment in their artistic development, strengthening their portfolio and deepening their capacity to create and sustain community-centered exhibition spaces in the future. The WOO grant will support Angel with professional photographic documentation of the exhibition, as well as supplies for the closing reception.

angel shanel edwards is a multidisciplinary movement artist, poet, and community caregiver who will host a series of free hair-braiding and clothing-mending workshops for community members. Participants will receive biodegradable braiding hair, locally made hair oils, and sustainable fabric, and will learn hands-on techniques for braiding and mending alongside conversations about the environmental and biochemical hazards Black and Brown communities face around beauty and textiles. By centering care work as both craft and resistance, angel’s project will teach practical skills for tending to the health of hair and clothes while building collective knowledge, reducing waste, and strengthening community autonomy and resilience. 

angel shanel edwards will partner with Black Spatial Relics to expand and document Black I.O.N (It’s Ours Now!), a public performance and drama therapy program uplifting court-involved Black youth, by reclaiming city streets as spaces of joy and belonging through video vignettes and public projections.

angel shanel edwards will be attending the New Waves Institute in Barbados this summer, from July 26th-August 2nd. New Waves! BIM is a gathering of dance artists, scholars, teachers, students, and leaders in the field of dance who embody the depth and spirit of contemporary dance and performance practice in the Caribbean and its Diasporas. In an organizing principle of “Emancipation,” sessions will be held at art and cultural spaces throughout Barbados, including The University of the West Indies at Cave Hill. As a first-generation Jamaican, being in the Caribbean will be proximal to angel’s ancestral knowledge and practices and will provide them an opportunity to further explore and re-orient their art practice, which is rooted in a history and lineage of liberatory dance-making practices. 

The WOO Grant will assist with the attendance fee and transportation costs to and in Barbados.

Shanel Edwards will attend Theatre of the Oppressed's annual workshop held in Rio Di Janeiro, Brazil. Theater of the Oppressed is a theater methodology codified by Augusto Boal that equips and empowers oppressed people to transform society through art. The upcoming program will be held in December and will include an in-depth introduction to the methodology and rigorous facilitation training guided by veteran Center for Theater of the Oppressed jokers. This opportunity connects to Shanel’s art as social change practice as they work to consistently decenter whiteness and center Black Queer and Trans folks in their artistic work. As a facilitator, dancer, poet, filmmaker, and photographer, they constantly seek spaces that help them create authentically with their community. As a result of this opportunity, they intend on creating an artistic regimen that is more frequent and in alignment with Black Queer thriving – as well as a retreat space to share these techniques with these folks on the East Coast.

Shanel Edwards will choreograph a dance visual production called This is for You that represents the softness, kinship and radical joy among black queer femme circles. The cast and crew will include black queer femmes in the Philadelphia area who will demonstrate the ways they flourish and pour into one another. This is for You portrays the existence of black queer femmes beyond their trauma of being silenced, stolen from and erased, and allows for more creative abilities to take up space. As a video, this piece utilizes both racial and gender identities to uplift a specific intersectionality and addresses the need for black queer feminism visibility in media. The visual will be published online and made accessible to black queer femme circles around the world.