Atlas Oggún Phoenix
Interdisciplinary Artist, Auteur & Visionary
"We are all in the gutter, but some of us, are looking at the stars." - Oscar Wilde
Born in the Midwest, in 1970, Atlas Oggún Phoenix, formerly known as Ayesha Joyce Fowler and Ayesha Adu, is an award-winning director, writer, producer, and editor known for personal, powerful, and uninhibited films. They were a drag performer for Dykes Do Drag from 2017-2020 and an actor for The Twenty Percent Theater Company's productions of the The Naked I series: Naked I: Recognized in 2018 and the company's sunset show, Naked I: Revitalized in 2020.
Atlas’s films reveal inconvenient truths, pushing viewers outside their comfort zones to discover new perspectives and challenge their identities. Their work aims to shift worldviews and attitudes by sharing vulnerability. “Do I Qualify for Love?,” a film embodying this language, recounts a 1988 attack by Atlas’s parents. After showing the film at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts’ Film Festival, the curator's father-in-law was deeply affected, apologizing for the abuse. This interaction confirmed the profound impact of Atlas’s work, transforming his beliefs and self-perception. Such meaningful moments motivate their work ethic and encourage them to continue their artistic vision. Their complex, disturbing experimental documentary series and feature-length film, Beautiful Boi, is an open study of their life, transitions, and mental health journey of nearly 45 years.
Beautiful Boi asks the question, "How do you learn to love yourself when you've never been taught how?"
Beautiful Boi has received six grants, including the Jerome Foundation’s Film, Video, and Digital Production Grant in 2023, Metro Regional Arts Council’s Next Step Grant in 2022, Minnesota State Arts Board’s Creative Support Grant in 2022/23, and Art Experiences Grant for 2024/25. They also received an Honorarium from the Sundance Institute’s Uprise Grant in 2021. Atlas, commissioned by the Walker Art Center, wrote three essays about the making of Beautiful Boi for their MN Artists online reader, published between November 1, 2021, and February 14, 2024.
Little Men won multiple awards and nominations at various film festivals, including the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Film Festival, Bucharest ShortCuts Cinefest, the UK’s Rapport Black Film Festival, Seattle Black Film Festival, Gary International Black Film Festival, IndieFest in La Jolla, CA, Worldfest Houston International Film Festival, and the 2020 Black Continental Independent Movie Awards, where it received an Honorable Mention. It also received an Honorable Mention from the Deep Focus Film Festival in Brooklyn, NY, in 2021.
Their third film, Do I Qualify for Love?, was exhibited at various festivals, including MSPIFF, London & Birmingham, North Carolina, DC, and Gary. It competed for Best Short Documentary at MSPIFF in 2021 and was selected as one of the Best of the Fest, alongside Questlove’s “Summer of Love.” The film’s style will be incorporated into Beautiful Boi’s monologue segments.
Ordinary, the official fundraising film for Beautiful Boi, won awards in France, India, and Houston, including Cannes and Marseille’s Prix Coup de Coeur at the AVIFF festival and Pune’s, Out and Loud Queer Film Festival for Best International Documentary Film. It screened at various festivals, including the San Francisco Transgender Film Festival, TRANSlations in Seattle, Brighton/Hove’s FilmPride Festival, and the University of Brighton’s Research Department’s fundraising screening. It also participated in Cherry Grove’s Trans Celebration Weekend and Out at the Movies in Winston/Salem and Tampa Bay Transgender Film Festival in 2023.
PHOTO CREDITS LEFT TO RIGHT:
My mother, Lorri Seals, Walter Penn, Evan Frost for Minnesota Public Radio, Lida - The Butch Barber