Five years into the pandemic, and five years since the 2020 Uprising for Black Lives, the UNtensive marks five years of resistance.

This year’s 3 day virtual gathering for artists and educators is organized around the theme of Making T I M E: an invitation to refuse urgent reactivity, and turn towards the brilliance of ancestors and contemporaries whose resistance work has already mapped the course.

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Offered in the midst of defunding DEI by a violent federal administration, UNtensive organizers are unshaken. We’ve BEEN here, moving bodies into anti-racist practice, finding creativity in the virtual world to gather safely, slowing down, and dreaming collectively towards a healing future. We already have everything we need to meet this moment.

This year’s UNtensive will meet within the online meeting platform GatherTown, in a beautiful digital playground designed and created by UNtensive partner Garden, a virtual community center for BIPOC folks practicing pandemic safety. We continue to double down on virtual gathering. We see institutions demanding a return to in-person “normal,” but the COVID-19 pandemic continues to disproportionately harm the most marginalized, and the accessibility called for by generations of Disabled people still matters.

Each day of the UNtensive is broken into two parts. The first half of the day includes the UNtensive mainstay, Embodied Anti-Racisting, which takes place in race-based affinity groups. Kai Hazelwood facilitates the BIPOC Circle, a radical creative gathering for purging, dreaming, and care. Sarah Ashkin facilitates the White Working Group, which uses nervous system practice to disrupt our embodied white supremacy.

The second half of the day celebrates the contributions of renowned guest artists who have guided the UNtensive over the last five years. Participants can explore audio, video and written materials from these artists embedded throughout the virtual space. UNtensive participants are invited to engage with the content however they choose, while Making T I M E together.