Culture & Community | Dixwell | NXTHVN | Arts & Culture | Kulturally Lit
Top: Santana Brightly, Amayah Smith, and Neváe Brightly. Bottom: Holographic stickers created by Amayah Smith.
After a long day fighting the villains of Townsville, seventh graders Santana Brightly, Amayah Smith, and Neváe Brightly made their way to New Haven to embark on their newest mission. Sporting the outfits of The Powerpuff Girls, the trio swooped into a vendor station, displaying their handmade jewelry and stickers across the table. Together, they formed the S.A.N. girls, saving the world one beaded bracelet and holographic sticker at a time.
This was the scene last Sunday at Kulturally Lit’s fourth annual DiasporaCON, a one-day conference that centers, celebrates and amplifies graphic novels, their specific culture, and their makers across the African diaspora. The event, which took place at the Henry Street arts incubator NXTHVN, featured creative workshops and panels, vendors, flash tattoos from artist Candyce “Marsh” John, and a cosplay contest hosted by poet Josh "AnUrbanNerd" Brown.
With a 2025 theme of “Radical and Revolutionary Reading,” this year’s festival featured a record number of both vendors and attendees, including several who made the trip in from New York, Massachusetts, and New Jersey. Kulturally LIT Artistic Director Juanita Sunday, who also leads the 6th Dimension Black Futures Institute, said she was excited to see the event’s rapid growth.
“It's really just looking at the ways that we can use DIY comics, publishing, anything that we can make ourselves to tell our own stories, to organize, to reimagine our own narratives, and really just be as radical, revolutionary as we can possibly be,” she said.
Sunday: Creating space and opportunity.
While running DiasporaCON is part of Sunday’s job, she also has a personal investment in and deep association with the cause. She participates in (and is a fan of) cosplay—dressing up in costume, and through it transforming into superhero characters—to express her own interest in Afro-futurism. Now, she said, she hopes to continue to create a nurturing environment for other creatives.
“Last year, I've heard people say, like, ‘I've been looking for a Black Nerd scene in Connecticut,’” she said. “And so being able to provide that space and providing those opportunities for people is really cool.”
The impact of DiasporaCON isn’t lost on IfeMichelle Gardin, founder and executive director of Kulturally Lit. Born and raised in New Haven during the 1960s, Gardin remembers a time when graphic novels and animation were scrutinized as lesser art forms, and engaging with the medium was done in secrecy.
Now, she said, animation and comics are much more mainstream and have amassed a large fanbase. Like similar festivals at the Schomburg Center and the Brooklyn Academy of Music, DiasporaCON serves as a way to overwrite that narrative she experienced growing up and create a hub for Black and Brown creatives.
Author-illustrator and mother-daughter duo Cindy J. and Abby Cadet.
Over four years, it has grown to feature both New Haven-based creators like Reggie Augustine and T.C. Ford and larger discussions around Black nerd culture, the pivotal and long-overlooked role of people of color in cosplay and in comics, and the role that graphic novels play in both cultural and literal literacy.
“When you look around at the creatives in the room, that's what inspires me,” Gardin said. “That's why I'm happy to do something like that, and also to create the diversity in the space.”
“I’m just happy to be doing this. I have much gratitude and satisfaction in doing this kind of work,” she continued. “It makes sense.”
For mother and daughter pair Cindy J. and Abby Cadet, being at the convention was a no-brainer. A dean of students in the New Haven Public Schools (NHPS) system by day, Cadet lives another superhero life as a children’s author, and viewed DiasporaCON as a great way to connect with others in the arts.
“I'm here to support the culture,” she said. “I love to see young people making their way around the arts … because sometimes art can be lost in the education system and they don't really put an emphasis on the arts. And art can be so therapeutic, it can be entertaining, it can be a lot of different things. So it's one of those things that I am very passionate about.”
After realizing that there was a shortage of children's books that featured people of color, Cadet stepped into the publishing ring in 2015, creating books chronicling the adventures of her fictional character “Zola.” She went on to found Brave Kid Press, publishing books alongside her daughter, Abby.
Ten years into the writing and publishing process, books like The Brownie Girl Adventures: Zola's Family Vacation are meant to help Black and Brown kids navigate life and familial changes, such as family structures in a post-divorce household.
With avid support from her mother, Abby has also discovered her own love for and interest in digital art. For her, “looking at the finished product,” is the highlight of her workflow process. Currently, she is working on her own comic book.
Jarrod Walker and Caitlin Jenkins.
First time DiasporaCON goers Jarrod Walker and Caitlin Jenkins were perusing through the tables of vendors after exiting a creative writing workshop. Overall, the pair said that they enjoyed the convention and found interest exploring different art forms and mediums.
“I think it's a really nice example of community, and I'm glad that it exists,” Jenkins said.
Jenkins also shared some advice for others on creating community and fostering connections.
“Just try to interact with other people,” they said. “Like, it could take time if you've never done it before, but it's like a skill. It's like a muscle you build. You gotta practice.”