Don’t Sell Grandma’s House represents a collaborative approach to recreating sites violently fractured by redlining and dispossession. The process of immersive world-building begs the question, “Where do we gather when our land is gone?” while also thinking about the modified ways that families transmit their histories in intimate and sacred spaces.
This show was on view concurrently with I Know Why the Blackbird Sings, a multimedia exhibition created by Tyiesha Radford Shorts.
Artists From Left to Right:
Sharbreon Plummer, Tyiesha Radford Shorts, Keya Crenshaw, Matthew Pitts, Marshall Shorts
Keya Crenshaw
Cypress, Camellias, Magnolias, and Red Clay Ancestors on the Wall, Let the Ghosts Chit Chat
family photos, family heirlooms (love letters, Beta Tau Chapter of AΦA paddle, bible, jewelry, knick knacks, etc.), family furniture - rug
2025
Keya Crenshaw
2025
This installation is a combination of both my grandmother's houses - thresholds shaped by the two Souths that made me: Louisiana, where my mother's people are rooted, and Alabama, where my father's family made their home.
Keya Crenshaw
2025
Cypress, camellias, magnolias, and red clay carry the weight of those landscapes, where roots run deep and the soil itself remembers.
Keya Crenshaw
2025
Within the foyer, every object whispers: family portraits lined across the walls, church fans stirring both heat and spirit, a record player sending gospel and soul into the air, the peppermint bowl that never empties.
Keya Crenshaw
2025
This is a room of welcome and keeping, where the ancestors gather quietly, and the ghosts - tender, watchful, familiar - lean in to chit chat.
Keya Crenshaw
2025
Here, in the house our grandmothers built, I am reminded that home is never just a place, but a chorus of memory, love, and presence that continues to shape me.
Keya Crenshaw
2025
Keya Crenshaw, a native of Columbus, OH, attended The Ohio State University where she received her BA in 2006 with honors and double majors in Women's Studies and Film Studies.
Keya Crenshaw
2025
A prose poet, actor, and Founder of Black Chick Media, LLC, and the Sacred Spaces Collective, Keya has previously held positions at The Ohio State University, The Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity, WOSU Public Media, Americans for the Arts, the Brooklyn Arts Council, and the Columbus Post Newspaper.
Keya Crenshaw
2025
Founder of Black Chick Media, LLC, Keya acts as a Film Festival Consultant, Digital Media Maven, and Writer.
Keya Crenshaw
2025
As a creative entrepreneur and actor, Keya is a member of numerous organizations including the League of Professional Theatre Women based in New York City and the So and So Arts Club based in London, England.
Tyiesha Radford Shorts
Green Thumb
2025
We still keep things alive when our land is
taken.
We water and
shine and
prune the dead things so that
the living will have a fighting chance.
Will make way for more life and
will eventually become the soil they
thought they could keep from us.
Tyiesha Radford Shorts
2025
This green thumb practice is a shared responsibility. Feel free to spray the plants one time per visit.
Marshall Shorts
9119 Shipherd
An ode to memory and mementos from a good kid in a mad city.
2025
Ode to Y2K
Marshall's artwork is deeply inspired by the cultural production of the Black Arts Movement and the social realism work of artists such as Emory Douglas, Barbara Jones-Hogu, Aaron Douglas, Kwame Brathwaite and others. A self-proclaimed child of gospel & hip-hop, his work seeks to explore these who believes in the transformative power of an image to change perceptions and shape futures.
Marshall Shorts
2025
Working across various modes of art-making from to bring our stories to life and give them the visibility they deserve. I am proud to be part of the canon of Black visual storytellers and honored to contribute to the ongoing struggle for representation and dignity.
Marshall Shorts
2025
"My goal is to inspire those who may see my work to look more carefully at the world around them. My work is an inquiry into speculative and experimental design that attempts to have a critical conversation around social and political issues. I attempt to deconstruct American exceptionalism by engaging subjects from pop culture, civil rights, and Black culture. While I explore these subjects through a variety of materials and processes I always attempt to tether my work through a speculative consistent dialectic. In other words there is a thread that connects all the bodies of work regardless of the material conditions of the work"
Tyiesha Radford Shorts
Loosing Recipes
2025
The kitchen table is not merely a space for meals. It serves as a rest stop, a hair salon, an artist studio, and a place of shared memory. Listen as news coverage of a hurricane prompts a family lesson on displacement and migration.
Tyiesha Radford Shorts
Loosing Recipes
2025
What stories are held at your kitchen table? What other activities make their way to the kitchen table? Feel free to share them with each other while completing the puzzle.
Matthew Pitts
An Alternative United Country
2025
Matthew Pitts
Collages 1 - 9
collage on canvas
2025
Matthew Pits
2025
Sharbreon Plummer
Sit for a While
installation
2025
Slow drags and loud laughs along a backdrop of velvet, lace and chintz. Curious, crystal and portraits witness sacred moments of connection and contemplation.
Sit for a While is an homage to the beauty and reverence of the Black home, specifically sitting rooms. The rooms of our youth that we could observe but not touch.
Sharbreon Plummer
2025
You are invited to pause, imagine and transport yourself to the spaces carefully crafted by our mothers, grandmothers and beloved elders. Take a moment to listen and adorn this room using your mind's eyes. Allow each song to invoke your senses and conjure the smells, sounds, and textures that transport you to a bygone era.
Photo Credits: Abeeku Kittoe, Alicia Cook, Caroline Brightman, Grace Rodich, Rylee McKenzie