Charlyn Magdaline Griffith-Oro

Charlyn Griffith-Oro founded Wholistic.art in 2008, a creative agency producing projects focused on liberatory practice, interrogating the balance of personal contemplation and collective action.

Charlyn leans into archival research to celebrate, uplift, and imagine new Black and Indigenous worlds. They are an award-winning multi-media artist, environmentalist, and birthworker. They have produced exhibitions, events, and mutual aid brigades that demand social justice and honor Black radical traditions. From land stewardship to film making they are forging a path toward a safe sustainable future for Black, queer, and trans people of color.

As a British immigrant with Caribbean heritage, Charlyn’s work blends historical research and profound genealogical studies. Their enduring socially engaged project, The Free Brunch Program (FBP), has been a vehicle for sharing food traditions while investigating the importance of radical generosity to survival. Additionally, their latest sculpture-oriented work, “A Provenance” (“AP”), incorporates cowrie shells—an undervalued currency, symbol of pre-colonial civilizations, and revered tool of spiritual practitioners worldwide. Everyday objects serve as markers of time and memory, while the cowrie embellishments are the imprints of those who have held and utilized them. This growing collection preserves the stories of Black Indigenous people that have remained hidden in archives and museums. Through unearthing documentation and recalling oral histories, these artifacts become voice to those forgotten or excluded from the historical narrative. “AP” presents a data visualization that engages the viewer’s sense of sight, while FBP stimulates the olfactory system—both tactile experiences aimed at healing the memory loss inflicted by colonization. Their commitment to documenting Black life extends to filmmaking, and their short film “The Aunties” made its world premiere at Philadelphia’s BlackStar Film Festival in 2023. Charlyn is completing two fellowships this year with the Queer Women of Color Media Arts Project’s Critical Juncture Fellowship and Race Forward’s Land & Housing Justice Fellowship.