Defund 604 Network
Tonye Aganaba | Chicago, USA
These artworks were created in 2020 by the Defund 604 Network to help us visualize the organizing community we are trying to create and nourish.
We see ourselves as the silent and invisible mycelial network of care, a sprawling underground network connecting us all and nourishing the root systems of the giant trees whose unfurled leaves carry the hope of life-affirming institutions that the police have squeezed out of existence by hogging all the funds and robbing us of our imaginations, and sense of responsibility for each other.
BIO
Tonye Aganaba is a Black African queer and non-binary multidisciplinary artist, musician, and community worker living on the unceded ancestral territories of the Musqueam, Squamish & Tsleil-Waututh First Nations. They were born in London, England - the belly of the beast and the stronghold of imperialism, colonialism and racial capitalism - but proudly trace their ancestral line to the lands colonially known today as Nigeria (Izon/Ijaw speaking peoples) and Zimbabwe (Shona speaking peoples).
Tonye’s organizing began through music - as one of the co-founders of #GroundUp - Guilt & Co’s performance based mutual aid initiative that has raised over $100,000 for grassroots campaigns and service-based organizations in the DTES since its inception. Tonye is a proud member of the Defund 604 Network and Cops Out Of Schools - organizing in the pursuit of the abolition of police, prisons and the end of state violence and repression.
Tonye is also the Community Manager and Youth Engagement Co-ordinator at Ethos Lab, a Black led innovation academy co-creating a vibrant antiracist community through the facilitation of arts-based learning and leadership development.