Category: Exhibits

At the top a helicopter flies over a tank tunneling through the earth. Various armed persons and roosters are spaced above and below the tank.

Excavating Haitian Histories

Haitian political history, Taíno artifacts, colonial plantations, and even cholera bacteria leave their marks on the land in Kwynn Johnson’s 30-foot panoramic drawing of Cap Haitien.

Small conical red clay sculptures in a wooded lot.

How the Soil Remembers Plantation Slavery

What haunts the land? Artists R.L. Martens and Bii Robertson dig up the tangled history of “the vampire crop,” slavery, and soil exhaustion in Maryland, revealing that the past is more present than you might think.

Ceramic and glass mosaics of two faces on a blue concrete wall

A Search for Repair in the Wake of the Plantation

An audio-visual essay by Deborah A. Thomas responds to the 2010 state of emergency in West Kingston, Jamaica, known as the “Tivoli Incursion” and asks how archiving affects—not just events—might be a way to re-imagine justice, politics, and repair.

The Alchemy of Early Photography

Four contemporary photographers use historical techniques to bring attention to the transient, illusory, and disposable items and people in our world. From tintype to cyanotype, these processes combine chemical knowledge and artistic insight.

A snowy desert plateau at sunrise

Weaving Diné Design from the Desert Landscape

A Diné (Navajo) artist finds inspiration in the Dinétah landscape of New Mexico where she grew up. Her artwork brings the language of Diné weaving to the fine art world.

A stop sign scorched from the Hayman Fire of 2002 still marks an entry onto the 9J road in Pike National Forest.

Fire and the Impermanence of Landscape

Photography is both an act of memory and a way to perceive change. For one writer, returning home means facing a landscape transformed by fire, climate change, and time.