ART+activism=ARTivism
Eliza Jane Franklin VS. QUEEN E.(the Artivist)
At the core, Eliza Jane Franklin has activism in her DNA. Her grandfather, Elijah Franklin was the first Black County Commissioner of Barbour County, Al. He sued the county for integration of the school system. Fred Gray a prominent civil rights attorney brought the case to court and won. As a creative being, she has always struggled to merge these two silos of interests. Thus,Queen E…her artivist alter-ego was birthed. She is proud to utilize her oral and digital voice to addresses issues such as migrant death at the border, racialized violence, white supremacy, mass incarceration, labor issues, and many other social problems.
excerpt from Fred Gray’s book
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Poetry
Eliza Jane Franklin aka Queen E. has been an invited guest to a plethora of venues to perform her Spoken Word Poetry. She speaks truth to power and uses her words to address social injustices and as a form of transformative healing. In 2019, she was the UCLA Martin Luther King Oratorical Winner with her original piece Seat at the Table. After many requests, she is completing a book that features a collection of some of her original work.
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Digital Storytelling
Her desire to tell stories that she has seen, heard, or been impacted by has manifested into several short digital features. Eliza Jane believes if a picture is worth a thousand words…then a film is worth a billion times that.
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Theatre
As apart of the introductory, first co-hort of the Kennedy Center’s ASPIRE/LORT(League of Regional Theatres) Fellowship inductees in 2018, Eliza Jane has honed her craft for theatre as both a leader and artist. She also received one of the most prestigious College Theatre honors possible, as an Irene Ryan Nominee while a member of the Los Angeles Southwest Theatre, under the direction of Jonathan Pope Evans. She is continuously working on a script to bring to the stage whether it be a monologue or a full play.