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How a teenager brings together art and activism

young woman
(Image: Focal Point)

Tia Marie Tucker has always had a creative spirit. In 2020, she remembers being deeply affected by the murders of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd. Because of her age and the ongoing pandemic, she couldn’t protest in the streets. But through conversations with friends, they decided to act with a creative Instagram live. Out of that experience, she was brought on to start a YouTube series for Cadence Theatre called People of Creativity. In her series, she and her co-hosts interview Black creatives in hopes of inspiring youth to be themselves, pursue art and use their voice to speak out.

TRANSCRIPT

Tia Marie Tucker: POC. It stands for people of creativity. We're dedicated to giving artists of color a platform to talk about their works, and any of the social issues that are most important to them.

Tia Marie Tucker: We really want to help promote artists and their works. Get to know more about their journey to hopefully inspire younger artists of color to do the same. Representation is very important to us. We feel as though if people see people who look like them, doing the things that they're interested in, it'll motivate them to want to do the same.

Tia Marie Tucker: It was back in 2020. Miss Anna had reached out to me. She's the artistic director of Cadence Theater, but Miss Anna had reached out to me after seeing what I had did for Power and Blaso and our Juneteenth event.

Tia Marie Tucker: I was very, very upset about the incident that happened with George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, and I was just in my bedroom sulking the whole entire time. I remember venting to a lot of my Black friends. And we were just very hurt by the circumstances. And we felt like we couldn't do a lot because of our age. Our parents were very strict. They weren't letting us go out to protest, especially in the middle of a pandemic. So that got me thinking of how I could merge the arts with activism.

Tia Marie Tucker: KdentsTV, it's like a play on words because it's with Cadence Theatre. But basically, it's a whole bunch of teenagers, we come together.

Tia Marie Tucker: We had a few interviews about the importance of representation in media. That was like one of our biggest themes. And that was a lot of fun, because we were talking about like, all of the negative stigmas that TV kind of portrayed on people of color, especially Black people, and how it kind of like, is harmful in general, because people ended up believing that that's fact. 

Tia Marie Tucker: I love standing for underrepresented people. I love fighting for the underdog. And I feel like right now, US minorities, that's where we're at right now. I like comforting people. So, I think that it makes sense that I'm doing what I'm doing right now. Because I'm merging my love for people. I'm merging my love for the arts and bringing it together.

Tia Marie Tucker: Even like the smallest things, like just contacting artists in your community, and just having a conversation with them, and posting on YouTube, that's a way to get your voice out there. That's the way to fight for what you believe in. Activism isn't just you protesting in the street, there's various different forms, and you can do it, and whatever format makes you more passionate.  And for me, that's art. For most of my friends, that's art.