The Respite’s Collective Collaborators

Anna Jeffries

is an interdisciplinary artist, mindfulness teacher (CMT-P), cultural organizer, wellness practitioner, farmer and heir of R.O.S.A Land.  Her practice is a rich tapestry weaving threads of music, dance, literature, and holistic health practices that reflect her Indigenous heritage as a citizen of the Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation and her first-gen Jamaican-American identity. She has explored various art forms, including music, dance, puppetry, painting, assemblage visual art, festival curation, art direction,  and creative direction; she founded the alternative festival, Summa Bumma in 2019 and co-founded Handèwa Farms with members of her family and friends in 2020.

The farm, situated on the ancestral lands of the Occaneechi Band (R.O.S.A Land) serves as a platform for education and cultural preservation.

Steven Smith

is a curator and community organizer rooted in the Triangle area who champions the re-membering of Indigenous traditions and land-back principles with his own work and Indigeneity.  With a background primarily in art events, music festivals, and grassroots collaborations, Steven embodies a belief that to commune with each other, to commune with nature, to create art are radical acts in themselves. Drawing from his personal healing journey with nature, Steven co-stewards farmland alongside Handèwa Farms and Respite with a vision to foster spaces where people can reconnect with the land, engage in traditional practices, and deepen their understanding of the interconnectedness between human cycles and those in nature. Being part of R.O.S.A. Land, Steven empowers individuals to embark on their own journeys of self-discovery and ecological awareness, paving the way towards a more sustainable and inclusive future.

Kristen Cox

Born and bred in central Kentucky, Cox is a queer Southerner whose Scottish and English ancestors led her to find this rare, alluvial forest gem of rocks, silt, sand, hills, water, wood and sky. Little did she know this lifelong quest to make real structural, social change would lead her to ‘impact invest’ in land and cultivate her inner solitary while turning a Roundhouse over a creek into an intimate, inviting mission-oriented retreat business.  Since 2020, she has been developing deep and slow relationships with members of the Jeffries, an Occaenechi Saponi family to whom the land is in the process of being rematriated. As the founder of the Respite and land steward, she provides radical hospitality for guests who come to Respite in the Round and R.O.S.A Land campground.  She is a resource connector, cultural and donor organizer, creative structuralist, social worker and recovering community development worker of 20+ years in the fields of arts and culture, community credit unions and permanent affordable housing.