
My Soul to Keep is a Dak’art 2022 OFF virtual experience featuring the work of well-regarded mixed-media artist, Angela Franklin.


With a BA in Art from Xavier University, Cincinnati, Ohio and her MFA from Bradley University, Angela has exhibited her works in the US and internationally. A native of Cincinnati, Ohio, she has lived abroad since 1997, dividing her time between Senegal, where she owns Chez Alpha Books and the United Arab Emirates since 2007. Most recently, residing in The Marshall Islands, Angela can attest that her experiences with the Pacific and the Atlantic oceans are interrelated and sustain her. Many of her most recent works reflect how meeting Mami Wata in both places has been part of her self-care, healing and restoration. These recent works as well as those created in response to her beloved sister’s death are the narratives she is sharing in My Soul to Keep.
MY SOUL to KEEP Schedule of Events
14 June 2022
Exhibit|Virtual Gallery Opens
The gallery will be open from 14 June 2022 12:00 a.m. GMT and closes on 26 June 2022 at 11:59 GMT.
16 June 2022
7:00 PM EST|11:00 GMT
Artist Talk with Angela


Join Melissa Hunter Davis founder of Sugarcane Magazine, an internationally lauded digital and print platform dedicated to global Black art & culture, in an engaging, thoughtful and dynamic conversation with Angela Franklin about the pieces in MY SOUL to KEEP.
Meeting ID: 298 965 5831
Passcode: SOUL
Watch on FB Live
https://www.instagram.com/artist.angelacarolefranklin/
19 June 2022
7:00 PM EST|11:00 GMT
Tired of Full Cups: Self-Care as Liberation

We will explore how specific works, including Drink First From a Full Cup, by Angela focus on self-care and the ways that SOUL (culture) and contemplative practices, including yoga can provide Black folks with options for healing, restoration and liberation in lieu of the high-efforting coping that is tied to race-based stress and trauma.


Angela will be joined by Phyllis Jeffers-Coly, co-curator of My Soul to Keep and author of the recently released book We Got Soul; We Can Heal.

Our session will be moderated by Dr. Kyra T. Shahid who is a purpose doula, educator, and leadership developer. She helps to cultivate, preserve, recover, and birth the dreams of students and professionals whose dreams are at risk of spirit murder brought on by the presence of anti-blackness and other systemic inequities. Kyra is the principal of Shahid Consulting, LLC and serves as the Director of the University of Michigan’s Trotter Multicultural Center who is well-versed in the Angela’s work and the work of Diasporic Soul.
23 June 2022
7:00 PM EST|11:00 GMT
SOULace in the Sea: Seeing the Moon, Hearing the Tide & Surrendering to Mami Wata
We will celebrate the beginning of Cancer season, the summer solstice and June’s moon cycle by focusing on Mami Wata. Specifically, we will explore how Angela’s From the Atlantic to the Pacific, When the Water Rises I Look to Mami Wata and other related works in the My Soul to Keep Exhibition identify Mami Wata as a healing and spiritual resource as reflected in We Got Soul; We Can Heal.,