In pictures: Celebrating four years of New York’s Black Girl Fight Club

At the start of summer in New York, Black Girl Fight Club, an initiative that hosts events for Black women, femmes, and non-binary individuals, threw a birthday party. Gathering friends, artists and supporters to the Two Doors Down dance floor, the organisation’s founder, Gabrielle Narcisse, says the four-year milestone felt similar to graduating (which she also just did from NYU). “I feel like I went to Black Girl Fight Club University,” she says. “I feel like four years of Black Girl Fight Club and four years of school have taught me equally as much.” 

Narcisse, 23, started Black Girl Fight Club in June 2020, during the COVID lockdown. “It was a tumultuous time because of how isolating it was, particularly as a Black individual facing the bombardment of Black death in the media,” she says. “I felt like it was taking a toll on my mental health, so I imagined it was disturbing for a lot of members of my community.” What started as small picnic meet-ups in parks became their first annual art exhibition in 2022. From there, Narcisse launched a magazine, started a weekly yoga club, and has thrown multiple parties (starting with rooftop and backyard gatherings and then expanding to larger venues). 

Here, Narcisse chats to Dazed about throwing parties, cultivating community inside and outside the creative scene, and bringing to life the “infinite possibilities” for Black Girl Fight Club.

I love the name Black Girl Fight Club. How did you come up with it? 

Gabrielle Narcisse: Black Girl Fight Club is a provocative name. It garners a lot of intrigue, which is exactly why I stuck with it. It actually came into my head really spontaneously. I made an Instagram account and was like ‘Let me ponder upon what this is going to be.’ Then it became everything.

I think it was historically significant during 2020’s Black Lives Matter [movement], but people tend to forget that [this stuff is] still happening. Black girls still go missing, Black women are still paid less and Black women are still excluded from art spaces and underrepresented in every field. We’re meant to be ushered into these stereotypes and not just coexist together and find joy. So that’s what the Fight Club aspect of it is.

From 2020 to now, has your original mission shifted?

Gabrielle Narcisse: It’s definitely grown. The initial vision was to build a community of Black femmes and queer people who feel isolated and crave a community to find solace and joy within each other, which I still think is the core mission of Black Girl Fight Club. But, now that the world has opened up, we went from an online publication of Black women sharing mainly poetry and visual arts to cultivating that space in diverse ways. Now, it’s about how many different ways I can foster spaces that cultivate joy and connectivity and platform Black artists who don’t really get a place in the spotlight.

Were there any moments that stand out over the past four years where you were like ‘Damn, we’re really doing this’? 

Gabrielle Narcisse: This year’s art exhibition at Canada Gallery in April was a major surreal accomplishment for me and our co-curator Kendra Gourgue. I’m an artist and have gone to probably hundreds of gallery and museum shows since I was a kid. I used to intern at the gallery, and my mum told me to ask my boss if we could do an exhibition there. I was like ‘They’re not going to let me do that’ but then, there we were, curating a show in a real-life gallery. The opening was so packed, which honestly gave me a little bit of anxiety, but all the artists were glowing.

You’ve also branched out beyond artistic events with a yoga club, why did you feel like it was important to cultivate community outside of creative spaces as well?

Gabrielle Narcisse: I’m an avid yogi but I would often walk into yoga classes and be the only Black person there. So we did one yoga class last year and I got nothing but positive feedback from both the instructor and all the participants. I wanted to do something that took place weekly and we launched it in February with two wonderful instructors, Ariana Simone and Ava Marshall. So yoga, nightlife, and arts. Some people might be confused about why we do so much, but there’s something for everyone.

It sounds like you are constantly doing 100 things. What are some of the biggest lessons you’ve learned from community organising? 

Gabrielle Narcisse: So many lessons, and I’m still learning a lot about social media, being an accountant, a graphic designer, everything. But one of the biggest lessons has been to allow myself to receive help. Now, I’m letting people help mother the child that is Black Girl Yoga Club, and it’s been particularly hard for me because I'm a perfectionist, but I realised it’s not a sign of weakness to ask for help. Also, somehow it always crumbles together very beautifully and falls together as it’s meant to. So Black Girl Fight Club has taught me to have faith in myself and some kind of blind belief in what you’re trying to cultivate, especially in New York when it feels like everyone is doing something.

I can see why you feel like it’s taught you just as much as school. So where would you like to take Black Girl Fight Club in the near and far future? 

Gabrielle Narcisse: There are a lot of things that I’ve wanted to do from the beginning that I still haven’t done yet, like branching into fashion or venturing into film (which I’m on the brink of doing). Then people have asked about literary things like poetry workshops, which, again, I’m on the brink of doing. So there’s lots on the agenda. But the dream is that one day Black Girl Fight Club will have its own multifunctional space, outside of New York. I would love to cultivate some community abroad and throw something huge, because go big or go home. I also want to keep having parties, because I’m just a party girl.