Lauren Dotson (she/they) is a poet, storyteller, actor, collagist, and teaching artist currently based in Chicago, but originally from Ypsilanti, Michigan. Lauren creates work that concerns itself with Black temporalities, queering the folktale, and using assemblage as a form of world building. Through her work she critically fabulates forehead kisses on the ancestors of her family’s archive.
Lauren is the co-producer of the South Side intergenerational, open storytelling workshop called Story Space and Time, alongside Chicago storyteller Emily Hooper-Lansana. She is also a part of the interdisciplinary storytelling collective Refracting Freedom. Lauren is a collaborator with the Chicago Black Dance Legacy Project, often melding poetry, videography, and dance. As a poet, they have been published in Voicemail Poems, Blacklight Magazine, The Common Almanac, and The Chicago Maroon. They have provided voice over work, starred in short films, and performed in plays and staged readings around Chicago and Evanston. Finally, Lauren is a teaching artist at SkyART, where they instruct free fiber arts, printmaking, and mixed media workshops with young artists on the South and West Sides of Chicago.
Featured Artworks
Poetry Performance of "Alternative Time Machines", 2023
Chicago Black Dance Legacy Project Summer Show, 2024
Image by CBDLP and Hope Houston
How the Night Sky Got Her Stars: A New Folktale, 2023
Car Satellite Radio Signals To Turn, 2024
Image by Lauren Dotson
Refracting Freedom Collective Final Bows, 2023
Projected collage done by Elizabeth Myles