“healing hearts with healing art”
Amarachi Shapes
Hello, I am Ezenwanyi. Amarachi Rachel Nwokoro - this is RachelShapes HQ.
Often described as a “powerhouse”, I am a disabled, neuroexpansive and queerly feminine free spirit based in North West London.
What is an Ezenwanyi?
An honorary indigenous title from Igboland for an embodied feminine healer and naturopath. The abbreviation is “Ezyi.” like “Dr.”
My heritage belongs to the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) but I collaborate with many ancestors, including the Earth herself.
Earlier in my career, as an actor-director-writer, I felt uncomfortable with the pressure from the British arts industry to choose a single linear path. It echoed the narrow-eyed & binary representations of Black femininity I found in popular culture. I realised that I had to go beyond oppositional dynamics, unmask and then reclaim my personal, soul-based power. This heart-led space provides an endless source of creativity that supports me to shape my own dreams through healing art. My lived experience of state violence has guided me to a wild intersection between consultancy, healing arts and justice work. I love to sing, dance and draw from the heart.
I am the Founder and Creative Director of Black Mind LTD - a grassroots Art-as-Activism organisation that centres the collective Mental Health, Wellbeing, Justice and Joy of all Black people in Britain. We are Afroqueer & disability led, trauma-informed, survivor-centred, abolitionist and healing in our practices.
I also research into indigenous metaphysics, decolonising creative spaces, ancestral healing, radical collective care, anarchic accountability and restful living.
In my practice, I explore the realms of truth, love and interconnectivity. I am devoted to experimenting with the healing arts; using them to unmask the miraculous shapes hiding in our dark depths.
I am not interested in behaving according to adult, white or human supremacist rules.
We are uncontainable creatures.
I like colouring out of the lines.
Photography Credits: Maurizio Martorana * Lewis Partrick * Mark Tipping