Aaminah Shakur's Page

I am a poet and artist whose work is most informed by my First Nations/Indigenous and traditional Sufi Muslim cultures. I am queer (sexually & gender; preferred pronoun is "they"), a trans-racial adoptee, mother to a teenager, have multiple visible and invisible disabilities, and no formal education. I currently live in Michigan, USA, working in a small local non-profit. My art and writing combine words, images, paint, fiber arts and beadwork to explore love, womanhood/gender identity, motherhood, spirituality, sexuality, history, borders, privilege and oppression, abuse, freedom and revolution – and how all of these are interconnected. I have previously published under the names Aaminah Raheemah, Aaminah Hernández, and Aaminah Al-Naksibendi.

I was formerly an early member of the SPEAK! Radical Women of Color Media Collective, a board member for the Islamic Artists Society, and a partner in the Thaura Zine Distro.

I am currently focusing on zine-making as a form of independent media creation for marginalized peoples. I have produced three zines in a collection called Jewels for Survival, a fourth collaborative zine in honor of Oscar Grant, and did the layout for the first zine of a dear friend. My long-term goals include networking with both local and worldwide poets and artists, and the creation of a local collective for women of color and queer writers and artists. I am currently in the very early conceptual stages of creating a new zine, Decolonize the Arts, to address issues within the our local arts community. This will hopefully be a collaborative zine and a part of the collective we are working on building, and hopefully will also become a series and inspire other communities.

Aside from zines, I am also a poet, artist and editor. I maintain the Elephant and Dove Designs Etsy shop, and am co-editor of Intersections: Woman, Artist, Muslim, an anthology.