Speaking with Noun Abdelaziz and Fatuma “Uma” Fadhil, one can’t help but walk away feeling inspired. The artists behind Abundance of Youth (AOY), a collective and community-based project in City Heights, are something of the perfect combination of both dreaming and doing.

“Personally, I was always the type of artist who has been backstage, so for me, the immediate first connection to AOY was this idea of having a platform,” explained Fadhil, who has a lifelong passion for photography and publishing. “Not only just for me, but for anyone who had that passion, but who had no platform, outlet or connections. There are people here who are creating who just need someone to believe in them.”

The mindset behind AOY is relatively simple. As they put it, “there’s abundance in collective creativity” and “when there is no space, make space.” To put it another way, when Abdelaziz and Fadhil attended an art event together in 2021, they couldn’t help but think there was a way to make the event bigger and, more importantly, more inclusive. They weren’t gallery owners, nor were they particularly entrenched in the often gate-kept modern art scene. They were simply two college students in their early 20s with a simple, albeit broad, idea: We should do something like this.

“We were taking it all in, looking at the art, and then when we were outside talking about how inspiring it was that all these people showed up just for this one artist,” Abdelaziz recalls. “It’s like we both had this vision. What if we replicate this, but for more creatives, not just one. Bring out the community for all creatives who deserve to be showcased and witnessed for the work that they do no matter how large or small a platform they have.”

People at a recent Abundance of Youth event at UC San Diego read a display about the organization and its goals.

(Courtesy of Hamza)

They came up with the AOY name on the spot while looking at the crowd gathered outside. And while the two had a sense that they wanted to curate and coordinate group shows that featured underrepresented artists and creatives, they also wanted to take it a step further. They wanted the organization to be something that could lend agency to artists just starting out or who had even given up trying to make a name for themselves.

“We want longevity,” says Fadhil. “While creating AOY, we didn’t want it to have that one-and-done feel where you go to an art show and you’re left with just that.”

Given their backgrounds, it’s easy to understand how the two came to form a personal and artistic bond.

Both of their families immigrated to the U.S. when they were young (Fadhil’s family from Kenya when she was an infant; Abdelaziz’s family from Sudan via Egypt when she was 10). These experiences, coupled with a history of volunteer work in the multicultural City Heights neighborhood, came to influence their own artistic practices (poetry for Abdelaziz, photography for Fadhil). Naturally, this would later come to inform the AOY mission.

“When (Fatuma) and I began to hang out one-on-one and talked about creativity, we found that we both had a very similar vision,” says Abdelaziz, who recently moved back to City Heights after completing her bachelor’s degree at UC Berkeley. “This connection was there and then we began networking together. We saw that a lot of the people we met were going through things like us; having their own build-my-brand moments when it came to their own work.”

Even while both worked diligently to complete their studies (Fadhil attended San Diego State University), they took their time crafting the AOY approach, teasing and building enthusiasm for the project on social media with posts proclaiming “AOY is coming” (“we didn’t even tell people what the acronym was for,” proclaims Abdelaziz). More than 200 people attended their first event in the summer of 2022, a mix of art, fashion and performance mostly from women and artists of color. Since then, they’ve hosted pop-up exhibitions, community events and even launched a fashion line and merchandise store.

Models walk in a fashion show at a recent Abundance of Youth event at UC San Diego.

(Courtesy of Hamza)

Since that first exhibition, the two have prided themselves on a hands-on approach and on continuing to listen to the artists involved in AOY. They hold monthly meetings to hear about artists’ dream projects and then help to find the space to facilitate that vision. Both Abdelaziz and Fadhil see the value in a more democratic process when it comes to the local art scene — one in which more voices can be heard and underrepresented communities have a seat at the table.

“San Diego can be a very slow city, but it is filled with really cool people. You just have to outreach and find them,” says Abdelaziz. “I think what we wanted AOY to be, unlike other collectives, we want to find those creatives but also have their identities play a role in it.”

“In the creative scene, still, you don’t see a lot of women as the top dogs. It’s still usually men,” adds Fadhil. “It was important for us, especially during that first show, to give space for women and especially women of color and immigrants.”

This concept of equity in the arts has become something of a cause célèbre in many institutional creative structures. And while galleries, museums and arts scenes at large are seemingly doing their best to address these disparities, progress has been slow. No one will dispute, however, that change begins and is driven by those working on a grassroots level, and both Abdelaziz and Fadhil hope that organizations like AOY will help drive these changes.

A large crowd assembled for Abundance of Youth’s recent presentation at UC San Diego.

(Courtesy of Hamza)

“The equity part of it is really at the center of our mission,” says Abdelaziz. “To maintain a movement, you also have to represent as many people as you can, because then the loop of representation will never end. Keeping a movement alive depends on having seats at the table for everyone, because if you do, the dialogue will never end.”

The two just wrapped up an exhibition and fashion show at UC San Diego, a collaboration with the campus chapter of the National Society of Black Engineers.

Most recently, they announced an 18-month collaboration with AjA Project, a local youth-based non-profit that specializes in the documentary arts. With a grant from the San Diego Commission for Arts and Culture, the two plan to open a City Heights space that will offer professional development workshops for young creatives. The space will also hold exhibits, public events and serve as a “safe space to create” for City Heights youth.

“It will be every resource we’ve ever wanted to give but now just made physical,” Fadhil adds. “I have no words for it. It’s so much bigger than us and every time I think about it, it’s crazy.”

This “bigger than us” refrain is one that is repeated by both Abdelaziz and Fadhil throughout our interview. In fact, they almost never use the first-person unless asked directly about their individual lives. One gets the sense that they really do see AOY not as something altogether their own, but as an extension of a collective mindset where, when implemented with a can-do attitude, anything is possible.

Friends embrace at an art exhibit at a recent Abundance of Youth event at UC San Diego.

(Courtesy of Hamza)

“It is that thing where you can be trying so hard to pursue something that you’re so passionate about and folks just quit,” says Fadhil. “But I think that what we’re trying to do is remind people of the possibilities if they do not quit. We’ve only been doing this for three years and it’s already transcended into something outside of us. Something that we never saw happening so quickly.”

When asked where they see their brainchild in five or even 10 years, they both become wide-eyed and giggly, but Abdelaziz catches herself and pivots back to their firmness of purpose.

“I think a few years from now, AOY is going to be a really monumental movement in the city of San Diego. We’re going to be a pinnacle space for a lot of people, recognized in San Diego and all over the nation.”

Fadhil smiles before adding, “I couldn’t have said it better myself.”

Noun Abdelaziz and Fatuma “Uma” Fadhil

Birthplace: Khartoum, Sudan (Abdelaziz); and Nairobi, Kenya (Fadhil)

Fun fact: Since launching Abundance of Youth sticker and clothing lines, the two have noticed branded items popping up in unexpected places. “Fatuma’s sister went to Morocco and she took a picture of an AOY sticker she randomly saw,” Abdelaziz says, laughing. “We were both like, how did AOY get to Morocco before we did? We still don’t know who put that sticker up.”

Online: linktr.ee/abundanceofyouth

Combs is a freelance writer.