Kah Yangni 🦋 Illustration

Last week I got to color in this GIANT *21 foot long* drawing with a bunch of friends and I’m SO proud of how it turned out. Trans People Exist in the Future at @philamuseum 🔭💫✨

Lately!! 🏳️‍⚧️🪐 Me (and @philamuseum staffers and my sister) have been working really hard to turn my Trans People Exist in the Future poster into a giant 21 foot long coloring book page! Swipe to see it in progress 👁️ If you’re in Philly, you can come help us color it in on Sunday June 2 from 11am-2pm at the Philadelphia Museum of Art at the bottom of the great hall staircase. I’m also gonna read Not He or She, I’m Me at the story circle in the morning. (Entry that day is pay what you wish too). (Special thanks to @fwdtogether for commissioning the original design 💓 And Lindsey Bloom from the Philly Museum of Art, but also Nabilla, Colleen, and Cierra for construction help!)

This Pride Month, visitors of all ages are invited to celebrate love, light and liberation. Join us for Family Festival: Shine Your Light this Sunday, June 2, 10 a.m. – 3 p.m. 🎨 Show your true colors by adding to multi-layered drawings from local artist Kah Yangni, who illustrated the picture book Not He or She, I am Me. @kahyangni is an illustrator living in Philly. They make vibrant art about justice, queerness, and joy. 🌟 Play with neon and glow-in-the-dark materials in a project inspired by queer photographer, David Lebe’s light drawings. 😌 Relax in sensory play areas inspired by two artworks in the collection that celebrate queer stories and special spaces where people can be themselves. 📚 Museum educators and special guests lead interactive readings of favorite stories about being proud of who you are. Image 1: “Barry in Rocker, (detail)” 1979 (negative); 1979 (print), David Lebe Image 2: Courtesy of Kah Yangni #phillyevent #phillyfamily #pridemonth #philamuseum #phillypride

I made this last year. I didn’t post it widely partially because I mostly like posting super positive things, I think mostly queers and black/brown people see enough suffering. Partially also because I’ve been trying to make positive images for kids. I was mad, it was in the middle of the last big wave of US anti trans legislation, which looks like it will continue this year. I am actually still mad most of the time though. As any reasonable person would be. Living through this time of scapegoating and blaming queers for the problems of the world is a lot. Seeing extreme anti queer laws coming out of Ghana and Uganda and Russia is hard. I’ve got nothing to say except for we’ve always been here and will continue to be. Thank you to @wsworkshop for the wall/funding/fielding a mad email Photos by @faythelevine and @ashandchess

Huge news!!! Not He or She, I’m Me just got named a Stonewall Honor Book by the @americanlibraryassociation ! 🏳️‍⚧️🙌🏾 The ALA gives this award annually to a few books of “exceptional merit relating to the LGBTQIA+ experience.” They called to tell us Sunday night and I’ve been crying ever since! Deeply freaking out, deeply. It’s been emotional hearing from people how the book means something to them and seeing pictures of it on people’s bookshelves, seeing people reading it in places far away. I think seeing other queers reading it and gifting it, and hearing from so many who love it, has made me really aware of how many of us support these ideas. I am feeling a lot for the community of people pushing for gay and trans freedom, and excited to keep pushing alongside the people who think being trans is cool. 💓 Ok, back to trying to calm down~ (There’s a huge machine of people working together to make every book so on this one I want to lift up everyone who read it! And also so many librarians and teachers and professors and other book lovers getting the word out. And also AM Wild who wrote this magical text and came up with the idea! Also Kate Farrell, Asher Caswell, Aram Kim and many others of Macmillan who built it with us, and Kelly Sonnack who represented me and helped me stay cool and actually finish it. Thank you to the Stonewall committee!)

#FreePalestine

WELL! I just got these pics back and I am posting them at 8:42 on a Saturday because I'm so excited! I designed this billboard in collaboration with youth from @circles_ciphers - combining their words and portraits with my style to make a billboard dreaming of a world where there are no youth in prison. It's part of this awesome project called #FreedomConstellations by @performingstatistics - y'all might remember me talking about the Philly version of this abolitionist public art and gallery show project, but this is the Chicago version. I'm so happy to be part of it! I love putting these ideas where people will be forced to see and confront them! All our kids deserve the best! Thank you to everyone who helped make this happen. Photo by the inimitable @mark_aloysious for Performing Statistics.

I made this @fwdtogether piece 4 years ago and it is still my classic favorite. It is one of only a handful of pieces of art I’ve made that I keep hung up in my apartment because it reminds me to look at the light. 💓 #tdor #TransDayOfResilience

Early fall mixtape! 1. A board at the @ribookfestival 2. Playing around a sculpture I finished at Tilden Middle School in Philly with @xbelleandwhistle my cool project manager (📸 @erinblewett ) 3. Seeing copies of the new book at @booksofwonder when I went there for the book launch 4. Words by @mohammedelkurd and art by @howlingmoondog that I put in my artist talks 5. Seeing @barryleeart ‘s mural in Atlanta 💓 6. Spotting @lindadmc mural too! When I went to breakfast at @riasbluebird 7. Seeing The Making of Butterflies at @charisbooksandmore , the oldest feminist bookstore in the south 8. Going to a 🍉 rally and shouting with a lot of other people whose hearts have been broken open this past month

🇵🇸 Prints for Palestine is an online art auction organized to raise funds for Medical Aid for Palestinians, which directly supports Palestinian healthcare workers on the ground. 🍉 I've got some signed books in here along side works donated by more than 90 other artists in solidarity with the people of Palestine. Visit the link in my bio to view the artworks and place a bid! 🇵🇸 Philly friends, I’ve also got work in the Gaza Art Community Fundraiser at @wowphilly on November 4th! I’m planning on dropping off copies of pretty much everything I’ve made into prints from my last few years so come through! All proceeds to Gaza Mutual Aid. 🍉 This effort is one way to send our support to Palestinians under siege, but the most important tool at our disposal is our collective voice — so keep calling your representatives, going to protests, and signal-boosting Palestinian voices on the ground. 💛

NOT HE OR SHE, I’M ME is out Today!!! ✨It feels unreal to me that this *first* book by @awildword is officially finally here! I started the drawing part of it 3 years ago. I went to my first book fest this weekend and it was really emotional to get to see it in the hands of sweet curious kids, dope parents, librarians, and one teacher getting the book so an incoming non-binary kid in her classroom would feel welcomed. It was like a real life WAVE of trans love. I hope the book feels like that to you too! (COME to the BOOK RELEASE on FRIDAY @booksofwonder if yer in NYC!!! Info on the last slide!!!) Special thanks to @asher_caswell , Kate Farrell, Aram Kim, Mark Podesta, @ksonnack , to the wider team at Henry Holt Books for Young Readers/ @mackidsbooks , and to @noahgrigni for getting getting me into books and introducing me to the people behind this project.

The last several weeks blew by!! I am still catching up to showing everything that happened. Last year @abortionfundpa reached out about making a billboard series just to get the word out about abortion access in Pennsylvania, where we live. We worked on them for months. Then, right as I flew out of the city, they finally went up!!!!! All over the city here in Philly. I love billboards! There’s something about them that has banging-pots-and-pans-together energy. Like no matter what, you will hear this. You will hear this message! I’m still pretty mad about Roe vs. Wade being overturned! But glad to get to help make something against it. (Thank you particularly to Penelope, Solange, Ray, and Elicia. And shoutout my homies who have been sending me pics of these!!) Description in alt text.