Today we’d like to introduce you to Atlas Oggún Phoenix
Atlas Oggún, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
It was late spring in 1986 in Dayton, Ohio, and I was 15 and an only child. During my teen years, when I wasn’t listening to Prince and drawing quietly in my bedroom, I would often go to the movies by myself. One particular day, I saw a trailer for an independent film in which a skinny, handsome African American guy was selling tube socks to pay the bills until his film, She’s Gotta Have It!, would be released. The trailer showed some scenes from this movie that were in beautiful and poetic black-and-white cinematography. I was enthralled. Also, I never considered that making films was something a person who looked like me could ever do. That tube sock-selling guy was Spike Lee.
Soon after that moment, I had another profound experience that occurred while I was taking a nap. I saw the name of a college in my dream. When I woke, I thought to myself, “Oh, you’re just in love with Prince. There’s probably no school with that name.” So, I decided to go to my high school library the next day to check. I found a huge book with all the colleges across the country listed in it. Excited, I paged through the M’s. There it was: Minneapolis College of Art and Design. I couldn’t believe it! I feverishly looked at the degrees they offered and saw “Film/Video.” “That’s it! I’m going to this school, and I’m going to study film and video and become a film director and make movies!!” This is the moment that started the journey I’m currently on.
After a few hurdles, such as supporting my mother during my senior year in high school while she was battling depression and alcoholism during her divorce, I was awarded a full two-year scholarship to Columbus College of Art and Design, which is 45 minutes away from Dayton in Columbus, Ohio. I took the scholarship while keeping my eye on MCAD. Before my second year wrapped up, I visited Minneapolis, Minnesota, and MCAD. I thought it was a lovely change from Ohio, and soon I enrolled and made my exodus here.
There were so many things that happened. Short story: I flunked out the first year and was homeless for a month after the school year. I got a job at the City Center in downtown and scrapped and worked my way into housing, utilizing welfare to help with bills and food. I was embarrassed at 21. I was the only person I could rely on, besides the kindness of some good people I knew at the time.
In 2000, I suffered a massive nervous breakdown due to an exploitative relationship with a narcissistic and codependent fellow artist. This impact led me out of the artistic community for 17 years. In 2008, I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and a few other conditions, which led to my being permanently placed on disability. I’m still on disability today, 16 years later.
In 2012, I worked with a dear friend who is also an artist motivational coach. She helped me gain a sense of direction after being unable to create for four years. Within a few months, I woke up one day and wrote my first screenplay in many years. I rewrote it; it was the story of my life told in a narrative form. However, it wasn’t working in this format, and I continued to struggle with my dreams for five more years. After a brief conversation with someone who wanted to make a short film, I came up with the idea of two young boys discovering a dead body by the railroad tracks. This idea, with the help of a generous grant funded by the voters of Minnesota, the Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative Grant in 2018, was written, directed, and produced by me along with a small cast and crew. This was my first film in 19 years, and it was called Little Men. It was screened all over the world, winning multiple awards and nominations. This film and other work can be viewed on my Patreon.
In 2020, before the pandemic, I lost my relationship with my first true love. At that time, I decided to dedicate the following two years to dramatically improving my mental health, starting with Dialectical Behavioral Therapy. This work took one year to complete. The pandemic allowed me to finish it at my own pace without any distractions. I didn’t have the pod experience; I didn’t see very many people, stayed off social media, and worked very hard to finish on time. Weeks before I completed the program, an additional layer of trauma was added to the loss of that relationship. After DBT, which saved and changed my life, I began one of two types of trauma therapy that I completed: Adaptive Internal Relational Network Therapy, created in Edina, MN. The other type of trauma therapy was EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing Therapy).
While I was finishing all these therapies over two and a half years, I completed two additional short films that were avant-garde, experimental visual personal essays: “Do I Qualify for Love?” Nominated at the Minneapolis St Paul International Film Festival in 2021 for Best Short Documentary and voted as one of the best of the festival, and the multi-award winning “Ordinary.” In 2023, I was invited to Marseille, France to share Ordinary and to receive an award for their Prix Coup de Coeur. In 2021, I also began my transition, starting with hormone replacement therapy and masculinizing my wardrobe.
Due to an incredible lack of information about older African Americans who transition late in life, I began and am currently working on an experimental documentary project about my transition, which started in 2021 at age 50, and my mental health journey over the last 40 years. This grant-funded project is called “Beautiful Boi.”
I’ve written an essay series about the making of Beautiful Boi for the Walker Art Center’s MN Artist web page. I’ve also written other essays for the Walker. Here is the link to my author page: https://mnartists.walkerart.org/author/atlasophoenix
Recently, after participating in Trans Day of Remembrance, I wanted to explore how I could better serve the community. With the help of a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board’s Arts Experiences grant, I created a trans, intersex, gender-expansive, and disability Pride festival called the TranSpace Pride Festival in South Minneapolis. It was the first of its kind in Minnesota, as confirmed by a longtime Minnesota state historian.
During my time in the LGBTQ community, I’ve had a significant number of abusive interactions with community leaders and members. This reminded me of my youth when I wasn’t “Black” enough for the neighborhood kids because my mother was European and my father was Black. They couldn’t find acceptance of my life, and I was often bullied and cast out of the circles. This experience repeated itself within the LGBTQ community over the last 33 years that I’ve spent in Minneapolis. There’s a lot of unprocessed trauma, leading to significant self-hatred among some members of this trailblazing community. As a matter of self-preservation, I left all of the different communities I navigated and formed my own, which I refer to as Spirit Sexuality: Finding love through the connections of supportive and like-minded human beings. I am attracted, either platonically or romantically, to the inner light that an individual possesses, which is not based on sexuality, gender, or the color of someone’s skin. I utilized my design skills to create my own flag. More information is available on my website and in my essay for the Walker: https://mnartists.walkerart.org/funeral-pyre-transition-through-love-and-respect.
The place I am in my life is peaceful and hopeful. I am excited about the future. I love art, astrology, and practicing my intuition. I’m a practical dreamer with nothing to hide. After all I’ve endured, I see nothing but infinite possibilities for many tomorrows. I’m incredibly grateful for everything and to my friends and family who have chosen me and have supported me for years. Whether life is a blessing or a lesson, and sometimes they are one and the same, discernment is the key to happiness. Hold what’s yours to own and leave the rest.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Included above. Thank you.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I’m an artist, auteur, and visionary. I’m well-resourced, grounded, and deeply connected to my intuition. My aspiration with my work is to connect with others who resonate with my messages. I want to expand my consciousness and humanity.
Sometimes, viewing pictures from the James Webb Telescope helps me realize how incredibly insignificant we all are, yet we are a tiny speck of magical dust that serves a purpose in this mad, mad world. We possess immense power, but not in the way most believe. That power is a lot quieter and runs deep. I want my work to portray this balance of vulnerability and power. I feel this is a humanitarian approach to creating art that includes everyone by establishing a space within a framework that can be explored thoroughly. Every time you engage with it, you find a deeper meaning that only you can feel.
I’m not interested in being understood. I want to be felt. We only need to try to understand ourselves—our motivations, the roots of our insecurities, our dreams, hopes, and wishes, and how we feel when we fall short of reaching these. Through my work, audiences can interpret this for themselves.
What sets me apart is that I’m not interested in being a “leader” or “organizer.” I don’t let codependency guide me into thinking that the only way I can have a positive impact on a community is by creating something that others will accept me for. That’s a recipe for disillusionment and resentment. It’s relinquishing that personal power. I’ve seen it happen over and over in the transgender community. In *The Undiscovered Self*, Jung discusses how leaders only exist because others blindly feel the need to follow someone or something because they don’t believe they can manage their lives without a perceived leader. However, those leaders don’t possess any real, true power. In my work, I reveal that my power comes from within and never externally—as a matter of survival.
If we knew you growing up, how would we have described you?
Inquisitive, I would get in trouble for giving my dolls away or for being told I was too nice. I have loved music and films since I was maybe 4 or 5. One of my favorite things to do was create storefronts and other little buildings for my train set. In the 70s, you could buy these train kits, glue everything together, and paint them. My mom said I was very patient when I painted some teeny, tiny bananas to hang in the window of the fruit market storefront I was working on. I have been engaged in art-making all my life.
Pricing:
- Voyage readers can find and support my work on Patreon. This is the link and pricing for the tiers. They can also join me for free! www.patreon.com/AtlasPhoenix Free Member Tier You’ll have access to trailers, emails, essays, and some posts. You’ll also receive a membership announcement in a Welcome to the Community Post.
- $1 Jumping Off Point! Monthly Membership You’ll have access to my trailers, films, essays, and posts! You’ll also receive a membership announcement in a Welcome to the Community Post.
- $3 Here We Go! Monthly Membership You’ll have access to trailers, films, essays, posts, and also Behind-the-scenes video, photo, and audio journals. You’ll receive a digital PDF of my screenplays and monologues for each of the films. You’ll also receive a membership announcement in a Welcome to the Community Post.
- $5 Life On Mars? Monthly Membership You’ll get access to everything from the other two tiers, plus SIGNED PDFs of my screenplays, monologues, and essays. Also, this helps me purchase memory cards for video recording. I use two Sony A6400s. I usually record with both at the same time! You’ll also receive a membership announcement in a Welcome to the Community Post.
- $10 Beautiful Boi Are U Experienced? Monthly Membership You’ll get access to everything from the other tiers, plus SIGNED PDFs of my screenplays, monologues, and essays. You’ll also receive a digital copy of my first film, Cord. And now for something completely different, a podcast to talk about anything and everything regarding art, films, and the philosophies of practicing art making. This tier helps me create a podcast : Beautiful Boi Are U Experienced? You’ll also receive a membership announcement in a Welcome to the Community Post.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.beautifulboi.com
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@Atlas.Phoenix
- Other: https://www.patreon.com/AtlasPhoenix
Image Credits
Personal Photo: Nik Linde
Photo 1:
Credit: Atlas Oggún Phoenix
Still from Do I Qualify for Love?
Photo 2:
Credit: Kellen Witschen
Still from Little Men
Photo 3:
Credit: Atlas Oggún Phoenix
Movie Poster for Ordinary
Photo 4:
Spirit Sexuality Flag designed by Atlas Oggún Phoenix
Photo 5:
Credit: Nik Linde
TranSpace Pride Festival 2024
Photo 6:
Credit: Nik Linde
