New Exhibit—In the City: Memories of Black Presence
From Birth of a Legend (2020) by Nyara Williams
// FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Press Contacts:
De Nichols, 2020 Loeb Fellow, Harvard University; Board Member, The Griot Museum
Email: deandrean@gmail.com
Lois Conley, Founder and Executive Director, The Griot Museum of Black History
Email: thegriotmuseum@aol.com
For high resolution images, and the full press kit, please contact De Nichols at deandrean@gmail.com.
The Griot Museum of Black History and Harvard University Commonwealth Project are pleased to present In the City: Memories of Black Presence, a new virtual group exhibition and series of online programming that center the visual perspectives of six St. Louis photographers and filmmakers who were selected for the 2020 Harvard In the City fellowship. The online exhibition will open on Friday, March 26, 2021, via the new Griot Museum website (thegriotmuseum.com), and it will run online through Friday, May 28, 2021.
The six In the City artist fellows include Collin W. Elliott, Shabez Jamal, Alana Marie, Cami Thomas, Tiffany Sutton, and Nyara Williams. As this exhibition documents the artists’ individual stories of places, people, and experiences across the ever-changing city, this virtual opening event fuses their voices in dialogue to reveal connections between their creative processes and unique relationships to the land, life, and history of St. Louis.
Programming starts Friday, March 26, 2021 at 7:00pm EST with a free opening celebration and launch. This event will open with remarks from The Griot Museum and Commonwealth Project followed by a presentation of works by exhibit curator, De Nichols. Nichols will additionally moderate a panel conversation with the six featured artists, followed by engagement with the audience for questions and answers. The In the City: Memories of Black Presence opening will be hosted online by the Harvard Commonwealth Project via Zoom. This event is free and open to the public, and audiences can register and attend via the shortlink, http://bit.ly/inthecity-exhibit.
// PARTICIPATING ARTISTS
Alana Marie @iamalanamarie
Social worker turned documentary filmmaker and digital content creator, Alana contributes 10+ years of experience creating content on the interwebs. From creating my own personal blog to contributing to national publications such as Blavity, XoNecole, and The Root to producing and directing her very first documentary titled The Kinloch Doc.
Cami Thomas @camicruzthomas
Câmara Ashanti (Câmi) Thomas is a documentary filmmaker, photojournalist, professional marketer, and writer. She's served as a marketing professional, having worked with national and international brands, while navigating life behind the lens as a content creator. A St. Louis native and resident, Câmi speaks on race relations in America, the importance of digital storytelling as a catalyst for change, art as activism, and how brands can utilize storytelling techniques to better connect with their audience.
Within the photography medium, Câmi has branched into capturing the stories of communities, through still images. Her first documentary photo project "Saint Scrimmage" dives into the world of Chicago’s underground soccer scene and how the game impacts the Pilsen community. Through an interview with the Pilsen F.C. team captain, the series explores gentrification in the historically Hispanic Pilsen neighborhood of Chicago, the challenges of being undocumented in the city, and the story of how each of the young men fell in love with soccer. Other photo projects include the Vie et Jeu photo project, a dive into the lives of Black Parisians, and portraits and journalistic shoots throughout St. Louis.
As a full-time creative, Câmi aims to advocate for connection through visual storytelling through a camera lens and push for tangible and measurable change in St. Louis.
Collin Elliott @n1frame
Collin W. Elliott is a community artivist, based out of St. Louis, MO. His work consists of sharing narratives that explore the wide spectrum of male identity, space and futuristic thought. Elliott encourages participants engaged with the work to respond with action. Working within the alias ‘In One Frame’, he seeks bridges to connect progressive thought in a collaborative manner.
Nyara Williams @nyara.w
Nyara Williams is a St.Louis based multidisciplinary artist and business owner, working primarily in textiles, photography, and dance. Through her practice and her business, she merges her passions for storytelling, building community and Black culture.
As a business owner, Williams founded the clothing company, Black.Clothing, to promote unity, acceptance, and education within the Black community. Black.Clothing has gained an international audience and Williams has participated in pop up shows around the U.S. and in Toronto, Canada.
Her work in photography has earned her a spot as one of the 2020 Harvard Commonwealth Fellows, a commission in Tijuana, Mexico, and grants from numerous institutions, including The Pulitzer Arts Foundation.
Tiffany Sutton @tiffanyjoy1955
Photographer Tiff J. Sutton ( b. Rochester, NY 1981) Raised in suburban St. Louis, MO, Tiffany began documenting family and friends after receiving a Kodak camera as a Christmas gift in the early 1990s. While primarily a self-taught photographer, she also attended classes at Washington University in St. Louis and St. Louis Community College.
Working within the discourse of abstract and figurative portraiture, I create photographs regarding selfhood and social movements. My work explores the unnerving possibility of multiple meanings, dual perceptions and limitlessness in the seemingly binary. Drawing repeatedly on Black feminism thought, I capture Black women with poise and naturalness that exudes a sense of easy. Photographed in classical studios, on - location domestic backdrops and neighborhoods, I am determined to catch every emotion within the subject.
Shabez Jamal @shabez.j
Shabez Jamal (née Donny Bradfield) (b. 1992, St. Louis, MO) is an interdisciplinary artist based in St. Louis, MO. His work, rooted in still portraiture, experimental video, and site specific installation, interrogates physical, political, and socioeconomic space by using queerness, not as a means of speaking about sexuality, but as an analytic(?) to challenge varying power relations. Focusing his lens on fat, black, queeer, male-identifying persons, who are often seen as the antithesis to blackness and queerness, his work acts to radically redefine the parameters of racial and sexual identity. Jamal holds a Bachelor of Liberal Studies, with an emphasis in Studio Art and Western Art History, from the University of Missouri – St. Louis, and an Associate of Fine Arts with an emphasis in Photography from St. Louis Community College ——Florissant Valley. Jamal has held residencies at Paul ArtSpace in St. Louis and Old No. 77 Hotel in New Orleans and has shown extensively including, but not limited to, projects+gallery, Gallery 210,
// ABOUT THE CURATOR
De Nichols @de_nichols
De Nichols produces interactive experiences, digital media, public art, and social initiatives that mobilize designers and creative changemakers to address injustices within the built environment. De is a Senior User Experience Researcher at YouTube and the former Principal of Design and Social Practice at Civic Creatives in St. Louis, MO. She is a 2020 Loeb Fellow of Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design and Transnational Fellow with Monument Lab. De holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in communications design from Washington University in St. Louis and earned her Master of Social Work in social entrepreneurship from its Brown School of Social Work.
// ABOUT THE GRIOT MUSEUM
Through compelling core exhibits, dynamic touring shows, educational and entertaining public programs, The Griot Museum creates a community of lifelong learners who explore, experience and embrace the St. Louis region's rich and enduring African-American heritage.
Only the second of its kind in the country, The Griot Museum of Black History opened as The Black World History Wax Museum in February 1997. In 2009, we hit upon what seems to be the perfect name “The Griot Museum of Black History” ("The Griot”). In some African countries, the “Griot,” (pronounced “GREE-OH”) is a highly respected member of the community who collects, preserves and shares the stories, objects, and cultural traditions of the community. Our new name more accurately reflects what we do - collect, preserve, and share the stories, culture, and history of Black people - particularly those with a regional connection to American history.
In 2009, the Missouri Humanities Council formed the Urban Museum Collaborative with the Griot and two other St. Louis museums, Eugene Field House Museum and Campbell House Museum, to share resources and collaborate on educational programs following a "museum without walls" model to connect museum exhibits with their surrounding urban environments.
// ABOUT THE COMMONWEALTH PROJECT
The Commonwealth Project at Harvard University models a new way for universities to engage with social problems through mutuality, service and collaboration. Taking root in the Midwestern region of St. Louis, professors and students cooperate with cultural producers, activists, attorneys and local politicians on community-led justice initiatives and historical research.
Why Harvard? Why St. Louis?
The residence of the St. Louis artist and activist Tef Poe at the Charles Warren Center during 2016-2017 and at the Hutchins Center during 2017-2018 provided a unique opportunity for a sustained interchange of eyewitness and academic knowledge about the city of St. Louis. Out of that interchange emerged the idea of the Commonwealth Project. Our mission is to be thoroughly mutual: to bring frontline knowledge into the university and university know-how into the community.