Speculative Landscapes: A Performance by Rasheena Fountain

Developed in collaboration with Adeerya Johnson, Associate Curator at the Museum of Pop Culture, this two-part series evokes the American South and the ethos of Black science fiction as a means through which to experience the landscapes embedded within Rodney McMillian: Neighbors.

For this iteration, poet, musician, and scholar Rasheena Fountain will present Speculative Land Blues, a blues guitar, poetry, and DJ set which deploys blues as an imaginative route to home. The performance builds on Fountain’s interdisciplinary blues practice, exploring ecological recollection, other-than-human relationality, Black geographies, and anti-coloniality.

This program will integrate the African American practice of call-and-response as a method to incorporate embodied, communal, and participatory engagement.

Join us downstairs in the Lower Level Galleries for this in-gallery performance. Seating will be available.

RSVP for the next iteration of Speculative Landscapes, featuring a reading by Anastacia-Reneé on March 21st.

Rasheena Fountain centers environmental advocacy and justice. She has received fellowships and support from the Jack Straw Writers Program, National Audubon, and Sundress Academy for the Arts. She has partnered with the National Resource Defense Council (NRDC) to highlight Black environmental stories through interviews, writing, and performing eco-poetry. Fountain is the author of Starfish Blues: A Memoir. Her short film, Dropped Down Blues, debuted in the “How We Carry Water” 2024 exhibit at PRAx. In 2025, she released, In the Aftermath, a blues guitar and poetry performance set partly recorded as a participant in the Jackstraw Artist Support Program and performed at the 54th Northwest Folklife Festival in Seattle. Fountain has a BA in Creative Writing from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, an M.A.Ed. from Antioch University Seattle/IslandWood, and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Washington, where she is focusing on blues and environment as a PhD candidate in English.

Dr. Adeerya Johnson is an Associate Curator at the Museum of Pop Culture whose curatorial and scholarly work centers Black Studies and the preservation of Black cultural memory within museums. She holds a PhD in Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Social Justice from the University of British Columbia and is a proud Alumna of Spelman College. Dr. Johnson specializes in African American music, hip-hop, and visual culture, with a particular focus on the U.S. South and Black women’s expressive cultures with her research, Dirty South Feminism. At MoPOP, she’s curated exhibitions including Never Turn Back: Echoes of African American Music, Massive: The Power of Pop Culture and My Mic Sounds Nice: Hip-Hop Feminism in History, foregrounding Black feminist, community-centered, and anti-racist curatorial methodologies. Trained as a Digital Collections Archivist, Dr. Johnson bridges Black Studies scholarship and museum practice, positioning African American exhibitions as vital sites of cultural affirmation and historical reckoning.