niyafriday

I am a mixed media artist from Charlotte, North Carolina. I enjoy exploring multiple creative mediums in hopes of better understanding myself and the world around me. My work centers Black women/femmes shaping the world, a focus that guides both my creative choices and my perspective. I’m drawn to imagination and the challenge of giving language to ideas and emotions that feel deeply intrinsic to the human experience. I encourage people to honor their creativity through self expression and I welcome collaboration as a part of that exploration.

SBG Bookclub

Creative Portfolio

The #SmartBrownGirl book club is widening space for the public to engage with research, theory, and history across a wide-range of backgrounds and knowledge bases. 

By pairing texts with historiographical components via reading guides/syllabi and hosting live online group discussions, we allow the public to participate in the type of dialogical reading typically confined within the gates of elite institutions. 

Located Online, Focused on the Black Girls in the Forgotten Spaces…

Sistories

SISTORIES is a queer black feminist/womanist storysharing organization that recognizes reflexive storytelling as an ancestral healing tool. We produce multimedia storysharing spaces for southern Black women to explore sites of recovery and resistance in our stories. By applying a Black feminist lens and creating healing spaces to share with each other, we work to transform the impact of oppressive systems on our bodies, spirits, and communities.

Issue IV-Pleasure Paths

Rooted in Toni Morrison's, Sula, and Audre Lorde's, Uses of the Erotic, Issue IV is a juicy collection of poetry, short fiction, nonfiction, visual art, and photography from southern-rooted Black women, femmes, and nonbinary people exploring the limitless experiences of Black pleasure and embodiment across the South. 

Flurry Zine

Flurry is a media platform uplifting artists, especially creatives of color, by creating a safe space for sharing and expression.

Dreams Issue

Return- Poem by Niya Friday

Girls Issue

Lights Out- Poem by Niya Friday

Participation in this archival exploration of Gullah Geechee history offered an opportunity to study the culture, traditions, and lived experiences of Gullah Geechee communities through primary sources. Led by Chaitra Powell, former Curator of the Southern Historical Collection at UNC–Chapel Hill, the course centered on hands‑on engagement with archival materials housed both in Chapel Hill and at the historic Penn Center. As a culminating project, I created a digital timeline built entirely archival materials.

Penn Center Student Research Residency

Designing Merch

I worked with Carolina Firsts, an organization dedicated to supporting and empowering the first-gen population at UNC designing stickers to celebrate National First Generation Week 2025.