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About Us

Who We Are

BGG2SM is on the vanguard as the only Southern-based Black women-led multidisciplinary project in the menopause and aging landscape, producing a podcast, hosting intergenerational events, and publishing zines. Our platform intentionally engages in reproductive and gender justice advocacy by creating new dialogical tools necessary to support our narrative and culture shift work.

Socially engaged practice, cultural organizing and reproductive justice

Since 2019, the Black Girl’s Guide to Surviving Menopause has operated at the intersection of reproductive justice and storytelling as an art form.  We now also understand that our work is representative of Socially Engaged Art Practice grounded by art, culture, spirit, and ritual.

Socially Engaged Art Practice, also known as social practice or socially engaged art, involves any art form that engages people and communities in debate, collaboration, or social interaction. Such practices can be organized as an outreach or education program or used independently by artists. This is also a mode of cultural organizing. 

Socially engaged practice often addresses political issues and is associated with activism. Artists working in this field usually spend a significant amount of time integrating themselves into the specific community they are trying to help, educate, or engage with. Our podcast, zine, and culture/narrative shift storytelling fall into this category of art.

Team

Our team is composed of nine individuals who are a mix of Black creatives, culture organizers, Healing Justice practitioners, and social justice advocates. We are cis, nonbinary, queer, and straight individuals who are grandmothers, mothers, daughters, aunties, siblings, partners, neurodivergent, and cancer survivors. We come from diverse educational backgrounds—from low-

wealth families to college-educated professionals. We are immigrants and 7th-generation Southern-born. As a team that consists of members from Generation X, Millennials, and Gen Z, we aim to create a culture of inclusion, mutual respect, creativity, and care where curiosity, accountability, principled struggle, and liberation are valued and encouraged.

Omisade Burney-Scott

Creator / Chief Curatorial Officer

Leigh Reed

Administrative Director

Mariah M.

Creative Director / Podcast Producer

Alexandra Jane

Social Media Director

Jade Ayino

Photographer / Program Admin Assistant

Madilyn Nixon-Taplet

Visual Creative Advisor / Documentary Production Manager

Assata Goff

In-House Artist Iconographer and Lead Animator

Courtney Reid-Eaton

Senior Social Practice Advisor

Claire Alexandre

Website Weaver

Mary's Table

Mary‘s Table is an advisory collective of peri-postmenopausal Black people and allies, of various professional backgrounds, who gather to support BGG2SM Creator + Chief Curatorial Officer, Omisade Burney-Scott’s visioning, resource acquisition, and physical/Spiritual health, in partnership with and in honor of her Beloved, Ancestral Mother, Mary Ella Kinsey Burney, Ibaiye.

Cheyanne Headen

Claudia Horwitz

Courtney Reid-Eaton

Holly Ewell-Lewis

Lana Garland

Marian Urquilla

Michelle Lanier

Natalie Bullock Brown

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  • Meet Omisade
She/Her

Creator & Chief Curatorial Officer

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Omisade (Oh-Me-Shah-Day) Burney-Scott is a seventh-generation Black Southern feminist, storyteller, and reproductive justice advocate. She is also the Creator and Chief Curatorial Officer of The Black Girls’ Guide to Surviving Menopause (BGG2SM). 

She has been featured in various prominent media outlets, such as Oprah Daily, Forbes, VOGUE, WebMD, NPR, InStyle Magazine, The Washington Post, and The New York Times. Additionally, she has written articles for Yes! Magazine, Blavity, Oprah Daily, The Honey Pot Company, and Ms. Magazine. 

Over the past 25 years, Omisade’s work has been grounded in social justice movement spaces focused on the liberation of marginalized people, beginning with her own community. She has worked in the nonprofit sector around social justice since 1995 and has been an organizational development and capacity-building consultant for 20 years for nonprofit and philanthropic organizations. Omisade is a 1989 graduate of UNC-Chapel Hill. 

She currently serves on the boards of the Acorn Center for Restoration and Freedom and the National Menopause Foundation, as well as the Honey Pot Company Pulse Panel. She was recently selected for the Open Society Foundations Soros Justice Fellowship to expand the storytelling work of the Black Girl’s Guide to Surviving Menopause to work with formerly incarcerated/system-impacted people. Omisade resides in North Carolina and is the mother of two beautiful sons.

  • Meet Leigh
She/Her

Administrative Director

I am Northern born yet Southern bred which may explain my hospitality seasoned with a little edge. I have been with BGG2SM for 4 years. Over that time, I have grown from Administrative Assistant to Administrative Director. My responsibilities include maintaining calendars, arranging travel, securing lodging, and keeping the team headed in the right direction. As of late my duties have begun to include stylist, body guarding, and all-around team bully #ForcedNurturing. Telling people where to go and what to do is my calling and I LOVE IT! My goal is to make sure that Omi is taken care of and that the team knows where to go and what time be there. Omi calls me a Logistical Guru but I just say “It’s what I do”!

  • Meet Mariah M.
They/Them

Creative Director and Podcast Producer

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Mariah M. is a non-binary Black creative, culture worker, and abolitionist/worldbuilder based in Greensboro, Afro-Carolina (ancestrally Occaneechi band of the Saponi Nation). As an aspiring anarchist and practicing cultureworker, they set out to create the spaces need for themselves and those like them need to not only exist but to be celebrated and thrive. They are a founding member of SaltWater Sojourn, a Blackqueer-autonomous artist collective that believes in the transcendent power that art can have on our communities as well as a writer of fiction and poetry. As BGG2SM’s Creative Director, they held determine the flightplan of the creative energy flowing for all of our team, and in turn, create pathways throughout the menopausal multiverse for all to access.

  • Meet Alexandra
She/Her

Social Media Director

Alexandra Jane is a curator, writer, and social media strategist. With roots across North Carolina, she is dedicated to the advancement of arts and culture throughout the state. While Alexandra was an undergraduate student studying public relations at North Carolina A&T State University, she first discovered her interest in identity and access. Now, as a practitioner, her work is dedicated to creating ethical opportunities for women artists, queer artists, Black artists, and artists of color.

  • Meet Jade
She/Her

Photographer and Program Admin Assistant

Jade Ayino, a Generation Z artist, researcher, and multidisciplinary creative based in the dynamic city of London, UK, embodies the ethos of a Black revolutionary feminist. For her, joy transcends mere emotion; it is an instrument of liberation. 

Injecting her photography with a celebration of resilience and empowerment, Jade Ayino crafts narratives that resonate deeply, uplifting and inspiring those who behold them. Her artistic practice serves as a platform for exploring the fluidity of identity amidst the obstacles entrenched within societal norms, particularly those perpetuated by white supremacy. 

In her exploration of autonomy in femininity and the introspective nature of intersectionality, Jade aims to blur, bend, and transcend the boundaries between creative disciplines. Drawing from her background in art curation and research, she employs a unique method to redefine and articulate the victories and complexities of Black woman hood. 

Central to her work is the endeavor to bridge the gap between menstrual experiences and the journey into menopause as the new generation,, recognizing them as integral aspects of Black womanhood. With each photograph taken Jade Ayino endeavors to capture the intricacies of existence, inviting viewers to join her in a journey of discovery and empowerment.

  • Meet Madilyn
She/her

Visual Creative Advisor + Documentary Production Manager

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Freelance Photographer. Creative Portrait Artist & Entrepreneur.

“I capture souls and the magic of life…”

NORTH CAROLINA based visual & aesthetics architect who specializes in Photographic Hyperrealism. I truly believe that every single human on this planet has something beautiful about them, even if they aren’t always able to see that within or for themselves. My goal is to show people their wholeness. Exactly and as beautifully as I see them. I live in the E T H E R E A L realm. My shooting style can best be described as Intentional Etherealism.The way I see the world has a rose gold tint with Black lace wrapped around the edges. As a New Orleans native, I’ve been in-loving community with Black folx for as long as I can remember, and have always had a passion for advancing my people in whatever ways I can. For now, I just want us to see the magic within ourselves. Easily accessible & ever-evolving.

  • Meet Assata
She/They

In-House Artist Iconographer and Lead Animator

Assata is an accomplished and resourceful emerging artist whose skill is to fluidly combine mediums using surrealism is breathtaking. They combine 2D animation, sculpture, painting, virtual reality, and elements of nature to form dynamic textured pieces. They capture the feeling of imagination, isolation, and intimate thoughts on their journey to self acceptance. 

A vivid daydreamer, they often see visions so real they feel they could touch them. Surreal dreams, their passion for the earth, journey with self-love as a Black queer person shapes Assata’s work. Assata’s hope is that by being vulnerable with their work they will inspire others to dream of a future rooted in love.

  • Meet Courtney
She/Her

Senior Social Practice Advisor

Courtney Reid-Eaton is a Black Feminist, generator, cultural worker, spouse, mother. She served as Exhibitions Director at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University from 2001-23. She also served as the Creative Director of CDS’ pilot Documentary Diversity Project (2017-20), which gave her the opportunity to work with and be accountable to a group of young Black people as they established/explored/expanded their documentary practices. 

Reid-Eaton’s personal work is rooted in documentary expression, striving for an emancipatory practice that upends white supremacist cultural frameworks. Work as a photo editor stimulated an interest in sequences of images, which led to making books; intimate animation. She is committed to material culture and interested in making work that is accessible on multiple levels. She also builds labyrinths, altars, and bottle trees. A lifelong bibliophile, she is a co-founder of the Black Feminist Bookmobile in collaboration with Sistah Docta Alexis Pauline Gumbs and Sangodare Wallace and is manifesting A Black Center (for Documentary Arts).