Mission
Ample World, founded by artist and writer Amber J. Phillips, is a place for people to commune with each other, music, art history and Black creativity at scale. Ample World is a digital and physical stage for Black lesbian curation that impacts and moves popular culture globally. We are building an educational home that honors physical pieces of art, memorabilia, and archival pieces. We are an innovative cultural institution.
Values
Pay Artist - We believe in paying Black artists and cultural workers. We are invaluable. We set new rates. We respect artists by paying their value. We are rigorous about raising funds to pay our artists. It’s not just about transparency, it’s about being willing to put in the work to pay artists what they need.
Strengthening Generations - Children and Elders are not an afterthought. We love and take action for our elders and our children. This means our platform uses accessible language. We create programming for children and elders. We are always willing to slow down and explain. We make our events accessible : provide water, seating, and other access needs.
Rigorous Pleasure - We take our labor and pleasure seriously. Safety and care is a ritual.
Black women lead - We center and protect femme leadership and innovation.
Take Time - We take our time. We are committing to a lifetime of stories and creation. This work speak our past, present and future. That takes the time it takes.
Sweet & Soft- Make it beautiful and soft even when things are hard and difficult.
Abundance: A Short Film
Abundance is a three-part short film that examines the limits and radical possibilities of identity through the shifting perspectives of a jaded politico, Black storyteller, and pop-culture enthusiast shaped by Black queer feminist thought. Moving between satire, confession, and cultural critique, the film unpacks how Black women navigate public expectation while cultivating private worlds of autonomy, creativity, and desire. Selected for the BlackStar Film Festival—where it won the Audience Award for Best Narrative Short. As the writer, performer, and creative director, Abundance reflects my commitment to blending political insight with intimate, character-driven storytelling.
Mind If I Play Something For You?: A Vinyl Listening Experience
This live vinyl listening experience project started as an invitation for music lovers to step into an album, soundtrack, or reading through the unique and immersive sonic world of vinyl records. The first curations featured “The Color Purple (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)” composed by Quincy Jones at the Salt Eaters Bookshop in Inglewood and “Betty Wright LIVE” by the soul and R&B singer, songwriter Betty Wright at the Red Rooster Overtown in Miami for Art Basel 2024. By using vinyl as both artifact and narrative prompt, the work explores intergenerational memory and the ways Black queer women build culture through our collective music tastes.
Vanity: A Weeping Post
“Vanity: A Weeping Post” was an installation piece commissioned and presented in WACO Theater Center’s Witness exhibition and featured in the LA Times. Amber created this vanity installation as a place of mourning and an altar to witness as well provide a location for self care inside of grief. The interactive piece was hand dressed with earrings, bracelets and other trinkets for adornment. It was featured hand rolled joints of cannabis, matches, palo santo, and white tea candles in addition to found objects, personal ephemera, and cultural items like an almanac and an our daily bread devotional booklet. The work interrogates beauty rituals as intellectual and cultural labor as well as honor sites of Black femme grooming for gathering and collective cultural memory.
Stand up Comedy & Live Storytelling
As a Black lesbian stand-up and comedy writer, Amber uses the stage to make being a late blooming lesbian sound like a survival strategy and a scam at the same time. Her work blends sharp cultural commentary, lesbian desire, and straight up charm to bring audiences into her world. She has performed across comedy clubs and theaters in Los Angeles and has started to cult following across TikTok and Instagram for her long winded takes on current events and random musings.
