A Love Letter to The Ancestors (Ft. Djali Brown-Cepeda)

Welcome back to another episode of The Art of It All! This week I caught up with Djali Brown-Cepeda, a cultural preservationist and award-winning filmmaker from Lenapehoking (New York City), working within archival, film, and television spaces to preserve Black and Brown stories. As an Afro-Indígena Caribeña and Olorisa Yemayá (initiated priestess of the Lucumí tradition), her work is rooted in remembrance, reclamation, and rematriation, centering oral tradition and lived experiences as pathways toward cultural restoration. She is the founder of NuevaYorkinos, a digital archive and multimedia project documenting Latino and Caribbean New York City through family photographs, videos, and stories. Thanks for tuning in! 

Follow Djali Brown-Cepeda on Instagram here and on Substack here.

Follow NuevaYorkinas on Instagram and check out the website for more info on how to submit your story.

This conversation was edited for length and clarity.

Follow the show on IG at @theartofitallshow and follow the host at @dariasimoneharper! Don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe. Sharing an episode with a friend never hurts either;)