golden lionheart collier
transdisciplinary artist | facilitator | Researcher
About
golden lionheart collier (he/they) is an award-winning transdisciplinary artistic researcher and archival alchemist whose polymathic practice flourishes in the generative nexus where disciplines, communities, and epistemologies converge. For example, their synergistic work has recently spanned a performance of Gorecki’s Symphony of Sorrowful Songs, film/sonic collaborations in the Arctic Circle, hosting a weekly radio show, and receiving a CODEX International Book Arts Biennial Research Fellowship.A MacDowell fellow, current Audium Theatre Spatial Sound Artist in Residence, and contributor to the Kirkus-starred Black Punk Now, collier was also a Fulbright Research Grant Nominee and finalist for the XENO PRIZE for Artists' Books. Through engaging, accessible research dissemination, they forge portals to encounter marginalized histories as living testimonies of resistance, weaving generative connections towards more just futures.
What an amazing feeling to be selected as one of Audium Theatre of Spatial Sound’s 2026 Artists in Residence after having such a brutal crush on them from afar over the years! I’ll be performing every Thursday, Friday, and Saturday in August. If you’re in the bay area, come through!
Had the supreme honor of joining folks from all over the country for the Black Banjo Reclamation Project’s inaugural campout retreat this year. Definitely the largest Black Banjo jam I've been to outside of the beautiful Black southeast.
^^Me giving a book talk about the autoethnomusicology publication I had put out called Black Banjo which I wrote to help people learn the history of the banjo, which is how Founder Hannah Mayree and I connected almost a decade ago.Whenever I held one in public, I was constantly getting wellness-checked by west coast Black folks, so I wanted to design something accessible to help folks understand the confluence of forces that transformed public opinion about an instrument which Thomas Jefferson’s trifling tail acknowledged we brought from African with us to the banjo being associated almost entirely with white/racist hillbilly culture.
I’ve loved Gorecki’s Symphony of Sorrowful Songs my entire life. It’s one of those gorgeously devastating works that stays with you and when I had the opportunity to join San Francsico Civi Strings to bring this iconic work FREE to the community at gorgeous Herbst Theatre, I could not resist! We played to a sold out house and even my amazing mom flew out to surprise me for it :) I couldnt’ have been happier and more honored.Check me out with team viola #altoclefgang
Oh, Laraaji! I got to support this amazing performance of Laraaji’s Day of Radiance at historic Calvary Presbyterian Church. Ambient Church got its start in Brooklyn (YEEERRRR!!!) and they transform non-traditional (often sacred) spaces into transcendent audio-visual immersions by inviting pioneering, established, and emerging artists to present vibrant and ambitious works modern contemplative, otherworldly, and universal music.Calvary Pres is one of the few buildings that survived the 1906 earthquake in San Francisco and the projection mapping plus the sounds were absolutely transformative.If you’re not familiar with Laraaji’s work:
MacDowell was a truly lifechanging invitation for me. To be in lineage with so many amazing artists throughout time on the historic campus was an absolute dream come true (and isn’t this photo of me with my viola just the python’s pantyhose??)
Are you a music lover? Check out my weekly radio show, Friday nights at midnight where I wield my dj controller like a magic wand, summoning the diaspora’s polyrhythmic splendor for an hour of deep cuts from all over the world and throughout CP time!
D.S.Press publication spotlight from The University of Oregon’s Artist Book Collection. If you’re ever nearby, do yourself a favor and check out this amazing design library.
“A lesbian is the rage of all women condensed to the point of explosion.”
from Redstockings Collective’s Seminal Second Wave classic, The Woman Identified WomanI will never forget my first time reading that opening line! For this year’s International Women's Day, I was asked to host a special episode and I chose to highlight Redstocking’s speakouts from before Roe. Back when choice was completely illegal, brave women from all over NYC gathered in public to speak out about the violence they’d been subjected to as a result of criminalization—despite being surrounded by a squad of police who could arrest anyone who spoke.I also wanted to highlight the 20 year gathering that celebrated the anniversary of this speak out with choice being under fire under this administration. As a precious abortion worker and longtime organizer in that space who saw firsthand the incredible vehemence and obstacles birthing folks go through even when choice is legal, I made this special episode for anyone who wanted to celebrate how far we’ve come and sustain us all for the work that lies ahead.
Diasporan Savant Press in a collection spotlight from Princeton’s Graphic Arts Collection.
Black feminist truth-telling has been a critically impactful practice on many forms of media, and, in this lively roundtable, we will explore Black feminist publishing as liberatory praxis both historically and contemporarily. From our specific standpoints as publishers, artists, book lovers and community driven memory workers, we will discuss our experiences, inspirations, and challenges in publishing and book centered-works while dreaming aloud the possibilities and future of this tradition.Had a ball putting this panel together with the inimitable C.A. Long from BLKGRLSWURLD and Ola from The Free Black Women’s Library!-Panel description from the Contemporary Artists’ Book Conference website
From this interview:In the communities that you’re part of, what are you hoping to see shift in the future?I’m really hoping that Black queer and TGNC folks, wherever we are, continue to build power, tapping into the incredible wellspring of creative resilience which is our ancestral birthright. In my heart, I dream of a more richly connected Black QTGNC diaspora, one where we further embrace and celebrate the torrential fecundity of our diversity and differences, to share resources and learn from each other. We’ve got to embrace the richness, resilience, and incredible diversity of the African Diaspora and reflect the infinite, fertile Blackness cradling our planet and our universe from which all life sprang. Anti-blackness is understood, in this context, as anti-life and entirely antithetical to visionary creative energy and the potential for healing. This could look so many different ways, but at the end of the day, this pandemic has connected us all more deeply and I’m just hoping we can heal and grow together.
I had the opportunity to collaborate with Asian Arts Initiative (Philly) and Unity Press (Oakland) on Unity at the Initiative! Here’s a writeup from AAI about the project:Unity at the Initiative is a multi-site multimedia visual exhibition and in-home experience centered on the work of artist and skater Jeffrey Cheung and their UNITY initiative out of Oakland CA. Unity at the Initiative was envisioned as a means to increase representation of Queer and Trans artists of color; to embellish the gathering spaces of queer folks--community centers, city parks, art galleries--with more diverse representations of queer and trans bodies.
I joined Lacey from Sober Company to chop it up about harm reduction, what the term “sober" means to me and our sticking points with AA/12 Step. I talked about how isolating it can be when you don't feel like you belong in a particular recovery community and how important it is to have recovery spaces dedicated to Black, queer, trans people. We got into more, but you’ll have to listen to find out!
It was an honor to be invited by one of my bookstore crushes Skylight Books (LA) to kick off their inuagural Arts Annex Podcast.
On Disciplinary Alchemy
–and the prism of translation.
Being a transdisciplinary polymath is a bit like being bisexual (which I am, in the sense of two or more), at whom a specialist-centric world unceasingly demands, "get serious, choose one!" (and, for the sake of that legibility which garners well-deserved opportunities, there are times when I do). However, it is essential to understand that in the dreamy sanctuary of my own heart, each passion, each discipline, each process, lives as one. They embody a breathing, beating plexus with the glowing heart of the lion at the center where no form is culturally neutral, naturally emerging from and returning to community, and where communities themselves are the ultimate arbiters of meaning.
My passions and processes frolic like swooning lovers amongst themselves, resonating in rapturous unison in the halls of my mind where a falling leaf’s poetry may inspire a sonnet, photographic challenges spark narrative inquiries, research projects reshape printmaking methodologies, photography influences community programming, book arts spur archival logics, publishing stimulates research circulation, and filmmaking generates inspired choreography.
Each process becomes a language through which I uniquely contemplate, among other things: How do marginalized communities encode, transmit, connect, preserve, and transform knowledge across space and time?
My methodologies cross-pollinate in unconstrained, playful synthesis, producing curated, irreducible work through harmonized complexity and omnidirectional knowledge flows—but this is not eclecticism for its own sake. As a result of this breadth AND depth, each project becomes a sacred site of translation—from dominant epistemologies toward the ontologies, kinships, and ways of knowing that colonialism sought to erase. Here, cross-domain insights from one field catalyze wild breakthroughs in another, and where the liminal becomes sovereign territory for artistic research.
For fellow arts professionals, the work invites curiosity about disciplinary architectures, liminal possibilities, and the epistemological stakes of how we make, archive, and share knowledge. For partnering institutions and organizations, the work demands the adaptive capacity to embrace innovation where rigor and creativity are mutually reinforcing, and where decolonial praxis shapes institutional practice. For future collaborators, the work nurtures vital partnerships where unique strengths generate exciting shifts through genuine discourse.
I hope you'll reach out and join me at the horizon where curiosity-driven experimentation meets rigor and where each material investigation becomes a portal to innovation and understanding. Whether you're selecting residents, building cohorts, seeking collaborators, or curating a lively cross-disciplinary exchange, thanks so much for taking time to learn more about my practice!
Diasporan Savant Press is an award-winning imprint that integrates rigorous historical and community-based research with innovative artistic creation, challenging traditional boundaries between scholarship and practice. To date, our research and political education publications are held in some of the most prestigious collections in the world including (but not limited to):
Each of us is a living part of peoples’ history—the history of the forgotten but powerful multitudes that shape the direction of freedom in our world. D.S. Press honors marginalized histories within and beyond the African Diaspora, transforming archival materials into vibrant cultural productions that resonate and expand access across communities.
DIY is not just a slogan, it is the beating heart of self-determination at the core of the work. Through collaborative projects, publications, zines, and community programs, Diasporan Savant Press renders the spoils of the colonial archive accessible, relevant, transformative for, and accountable to diverse audiences. In other words, D.S. Press activates the brilliance of our pasts to combat erasure and embolden us to imagine brighter possibilities in our present.
the black nonbinary archive
Founded in 2018, The Black Nonbinary Archive is a vital community repository dedicated to preserving and celebrating the stories, histories, and contributions of Black nonbinary individuals. This important initiative creates dedicated space for voices and experiences that are often marginalized within both mainstream LGBTQ+ narratives and broader Black/diasporic community discourses.
The inaugural release of The Black Nonbinary Archive, an oral history and communal memory/research project. This anthology contains writing, original artwork, poetry and essays, all of which champion the vital self-definition work necessary for queer and trans Black folks in a genocidally anti-Black world. The first printing was made possible by the generous grant by Broken Pencil Magazine (Toronto) and Rock Paper Scissors Collective (Oakland) and the work features submissions from all over the continent and diaspora.
From the first stand-alone issue of The Black Nonbinary Archive focuses on Temi, a Nigerian American poet who imagines the fullness and safety their Yoruba ancestors would have wanted for them (and who must do so because of colonial erasure and Christian hegemony in contemporary Nigeria).
The archive serves multiple critical functions: it documents personal narratives, historical records, and cultural artifacts that illustrate the rich diversity of Black nonbinary identity and expression. By centralizing these materials, the archive ensures that future generations have access to authentic representations and can understand the complexity of Black nonbinary experiences across different time periods and geographic locations.
The project addresses a significant gap in archival practice, where Black nonbinary stories have historically been underrepresented or entirely absent from institutional collections. This oversight has profound implications for cultural memory and community recognition. The archive actively works to counter this erasure by making space for artistic expression, oral histories, academic work, and everyday documentation created by and about Black nonbinary people. Beyond preservation, the Black Nonbinary Archive functions as a community resource and educational tool. It provides visibility, validates lived experiences, and offers representation that affirms Black nonbinary identity, including films and other media.
By maintaining this collection, the archive contributes to deeper understanding of intersectionality while honoring the resilience, creativity, and cultural contributions of Black nonbinary communities. It stands as a powerful testament to the importance of self-documentation and community-centered archival work.
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