Saturday, April 20th 2024 in Baltimore, MD hosted by Red Emma’s at 2:00 pm
Join Elicia Epstein for a talk on how tarot helps us rewrite the vocabulary of power, and with it, to strengthen our muscles of radical, revolutionary, and abolitionist dreaming.
Magic is an essential tool for healing and social change within our communities. LIBERATION TAROT is a collection of 79 tarot cards and accompanying guidebook, created over the course of four years by more than thirty artists and writers living in the US, Canada, France, Brazil, Palestine, and Mexico. The booklet includes an introduction from deck organizer Elicia Epstein, insightful essays by adrienne maree brown and lawrence barriner ii, and beautifully crafted card descriptions from poet emet ezell.
Following in the lineage of projects like SLOW HOLLER, THE COLLECTIVE TAROT, and NEXT WORLD TAROT, LIBERATION TAROT seeks to serve as a tool for those inspired towards revolution in the face of the able-centered, capitalist, heterocis-normative, white-supremacist patriarchy.
Tarot helps us rewrite the vocabulary of power, and with it, to strengthen our muscles of radical, revolutionary, and abolitionist dreaming. The deck eschews conventional tarot cards like the Emperor or Knight in favor of nonhierarchical cards honoring revolutionary concepts and figures such as the Crone, the Healer, and the Rebel, among others. Figures in the deck have bodies of all shapes and sizes, colors, genders, ages, and abilities—together, elaborating a vision of collective liberation and co-resistance.
Elicia Epstein (she/they) is a multidisciplinary artist and organizer whose creative inquiries span a broad range of media including sculpture, installation, photo, video, performance, publication, and cross-media collaboration. Their practice is one of celebrating intuitive and emotional knowledge, and using mischief to question and dismantle institutions of power and oppression.
Since 2019, Elicia has been the central organizer of the Liberation Tarot Deck, a 30+ artist collaboration including contributors from 5 different countries, focused on re-writing the tarot arcanas for collective political liberation.
Elicia holds an MFA in sculpture from the Tyler School of Art and Architecture, a BA in studio art from Pomona College, and a certificate in Documentary Photography and Multimedia Storytelling from the Salt Institute.
