Lesley-Ann Brown

“I do believe she is to Copenhagen, what Baldwin is to Paris.”

Olani Ewunnet, SAVVY Contemporary, Berlin

“Migration is a one way trip. There is no home to go back to.”
― Stuart Hall

“In Denmark, Lesley-Ann Brown works through multiple media to articulate biography, memory and experience, personally and around the issues of colonial amnesia and Blackness in America.”

Brown has been featured and invited to participate in a range of events, including:

• Blackgirl on Mars in conversation with Elisa Donovan @ Book Passage, USA, February 2023
• The Black Atlantic at 30, Copenhagen University, May 2022
• World Book Day, Transform Education, April 2022
• Memoirs of the Abyss w/Malou Solfjeld & 69 Art Institute, Copenhagen, Denmark, December 2021
• Zine making workshop Villain, Royal Danish Academy of Art, November 2021
• Zine making workshop Unwound, Prescott College, Prescott, AZ, USA, December 2021
• Feminist Healing Workshop, November 2021
• Tværnordisk poesifestival, LiteraturHaus, Copenhagen, August 2021
• Kulturhavn, Where are you from? Copenhagen, Denmark, August 2021
• Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival, Women of the Resistance, August 2021
• Malmø World Pride, Malmo, Sweden, reading, August 2021
• DIS – Study Abroad in Scandinavia, guest speaker, July 2021
• Zine workshop with FGU students, Zine, Copenhagen, Denmark, June 2021
• Text for We’re Magic, We’re Real w/Jeannette Ehlers, April 2021
• Critical Literary for Social Justice Zine making workshop at Prescott College, December 2020
• BLM in the U.S. & the U.K. a transatlantic dialogue with Dr. Joy White, August 2020
• Plural Wombs Research Group, Germany, June 2020
• Difficult Love: What Scatters and then Comes Back Together, Gallatin Galleries, NYU, New York, February 2020
• Decolonize Norway (DENOR) Finland, October, 2019
• SahWira Africa International, Turku, Finland, October, 2019
• The Brooklyn Caribbean Literature Festival, Brooklyn, NY, September 2019
• The Bois Academy, Trinidad and Tobago
• Bocas Literary Festival, Featured Writer, Trinidad & Tobago
• Cliffrose Convergence; Keynote speaker; April 2019
• Decolonize Norway (DENOR); Trondheim, Norway April 2019
• TEDXOdense Women 2018; Odense, DK; December 1, 2018.
• SAVVY Contemporary; Berlin, Germany; October 18th, 2018.
• Oslo International Poetry Festival; Oslo, Norway, October 5-6, 2018.
• The Dancer, the Drum & the Serpent; Sorte Firkant; Copenhagen, DK; September 22nd, 2018.
• Black Women’s Sanctuary; Copenhagen, DK; September 14th, 2018.
• Movement, Belonging and Other Words;  Skånes konstförening, Sweden; September 8, 2018.
• Crossing Borders; Copenhagen, DK; September 6th, 2018.
• Krogerup Højskole author visit; Krogerup Højskole, Denmark; September 4th, 2018.
• BEBOP 2018: Coalitions facing white innocence; Berlin, Germany; June, 2018.
• Waterstones Birmingham author visit; Birmingham, UK; June 5, 2018.
• Keynote speaker, Decolonizing North conference; Royal Institute of Art, Stockholm, Sweden; December,  2017.
• The Futures of Feminism; Lund, Sweden; October 2017
•  Spiritual Revolutions and the Scramble for Africa in the Summer of 2014 in Copenhagen.
• Not About Karen Blixen project at the Karen Blixen Museum in northern Copenhagen (a project about Danish colonialism & Kenya)
•  Black Women in Europe Conference in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
• the first ever Women of Color Panel in Denmark  and its follow up at The World’s Culture House in Copenhagen, both of which she was moderator & co-organizer.
•  BE.BOP 2016. Black Europe Body Politics, Call & Response in Berlin and Copenhagen where she was an invited panelist.
• Käte Hamburger Kolleg / Centre for Global Cooperation Research to perform her poem “Country: A Road Map to Liberation” at the Centre for Global Cooperation Research.
• Daughter of the Diaspora: A Decolonial Narrative performance at Krogerup Højskole, Humblebæk.
• What We Lost in Empire at Copenhagen Main Library where Brown was part of a panel on decoloniality that included Danish Trinidadian visual artist Jeannette Ehlers, actor Anna Neye, and artist, academic Simmi Dullay which took place March 10th, 2016 to an impressive turnout.
• Centre for Transnational American Studies at Copenhagen University. Brown was part of a panel to discuss Denmark and  African American culture.
• Fluid Identities at Copenhagen Culture Night October, 2016. Brown was among 11 other poets and performers handpicked to present her work at the Nørrebro Library.
• Hvid[me] Archive: As part of the opening event for the group exhibition Unraveling’s, Brown read from a series of works, started upon when she first moved to Copenhagen 18 years ago from Brooklyn. The reading was composed of a mix of poetry and prose that includes poems from her two volumes of poetry, entitled: The Organist’s Daughter and Black Girls On Mars, named after her now-retired blog of the same name. She approaches different subjects in her poetry, such as: home, womanhood, migration and identity.

In March of 2016 “Say It Loud” – a poetry collective of Black women poets was founded by Zanubia A. Omar, Helen Qwin, Saynab Fahar Dahir, Seredo Qassim Mohamed and Brown. The first performance of this collective drew an impressive crowd and raised necessary funds for Freedom of Movements.

Throughout my career as an educator and writer, I have had the honor of being invited to speak and/or conduct workshops around the world. If you’re an institution or organization interested in working with me, please use the contact form below.