Brittany Rogers
The Purple Dress, Circa 1992-1993
2024
“The Purple Dress, Circa 1992-1993”
“In this picture, my mama know she fine-lavender sweater clinging all her curves sitting right. Glory be her exposed thigh earrings licking her shoulders her hand a cocked smirk at there hip. I squint when I see lavender sequins fitting her curves like lingerie. Teenaged me couldn’t picture my mama a woman dressed to pull her hand a cocked smirk at her hip cabernet colored lip-curved like a fishhook dragging men behind her. Before this picture I didn’t see her as just a woman though I know she must have been those hips curved like a fishhook dragging men behind her. We don’t discuss who she was before children though I know she belonged to herself once. She says she is too old to wear miniskirts, run the streets now that we wore her down. We don’t discuss who she was before. What picture will I show my kids to prove I still got it once I’m tricked into thinking I’m too old for miniskirts, the glory of exposed thighs, large hoops? I imagine my children squinting at old photos proof that I was a woman before them, thinking in this picture my mama knows she fine.”
Brittany Rogers
Reprieve/The Beginning
2024/2022
"I am the daughter of Katherine, daughter of Gloria, daughter of Lucille, daughter of Mama Carter. Everything that I am is because of my matrilineal, but as Ajanaé Dawkins proclaimed, no one teaches us how to be daughters. My poem “Ode to the Purple Dress, Circa 1980’s-1990’s”, along with the collages Reprieve and The Beginning were a result of me considering the personhood and autonomy of my mothers, as opposed to the role and responsibilities. Each piece represents a different transition in the lives of many women, including becoming a mother, abandoning the ‘sexiness’ of youth, and approaching the end of life."
Brittany Rogers
Sacred
2024
Brittany Rogers
Burial Clothes
2024
"Burial Clothes, after Ajanaé Dawkins"
“I expect that it won’t be much different from now. Three options laid out on the bed before the concert the reading the date I want to get extra cute for; I call from the store to ask mini skirt or high waist jeans? I almost always want to look like Spring. I almost never want to look like a mother or a teacher, though I am. It has been twelve years of her knowing what look will make me feel most like I belong to myself. If I go to meet the Lord first, it is her that I want to dress me one last time. To say she would want her nails polished pastel. Her hoops round as halos. Lips lined and wine red. My best friend, her burial clothes should be yellow. Yes, yellow. Make her look like she’s in bloom.”
Brittany Rogers
Bound
2024
Brittany Rogers
What Has a Lover Seen That You Have Not?
notebook/table
2023
Ky Smiley
Last Century, Last Week
photographic inkjet print
2024
"This photo series is acting as an escape into the nostalgia of a girlhood that goes uninterrupted. I have decided to depict the space I dream of Black girls to be when they go missing, because we all know they go missing…and they find a peace they are more often than not, kept from, when they are here. A paradise that allows for innocence to exist fully and undisputed by a world that is quick to encourage the suppression of it and end enforce their neglect both in childhood and as women."
Ky Smiley
Last Century, Last Week
photographic inkjet print
2024
"I pull much of my inspiration for visual choices from the words of songwriter, singer, and poet Jamila Woods. Even the title is taken from her song “Blk Girl Soldier” which celebrates the Black girls in our history who, despite having many forces against them, counter injustices daily. The full line: “Look at what they did to my sisters, last century last week” intends to evoke the feeling that all of the violence they’ve endured, then and now is happening all at once and is evidence of it being a systematic issue as opposed to singular isolated events."
Ky Smiley
Last Century, Last Week
photographic inkjet print
2024
Ky Smiley
Last Century, Last Week
photographic inkjet print
2024
Matthew Pitts
This is where we tell the Story
2024
This is where we tell the story is a series eager to engage fantasy, comedy, grief, struggle and triumph on our own terms.
Tyesha Radford Shorts
The Legend of John Henry
3:00
2024
"The Legend of John Henry is an oral folkloric tradition that warns of the impending perils of industrialism and radicalized labor exploitation. Variations of the tale include descriptions of childhood, conception, musicianship, vigilante violence, fugitivity, and labor that paint broader pictures of Black Appalachian people — not as standard-bearers of rugged survivalism but as people who loved, who lost, who lived. Stories that center Black and other minoritized voices from Appalachia reveal how grossly over-represented whiteness has been from within the region. Appalachia is not solely a land of the white mountain man. In fact it is not even primarily so. Instead it is home to the hills and hollers, the railroad and the mines. Appalachia is the creek bed, ebbing and flowing, rising and falling, searching fro where it used to be and for where it has always been. Searching, lord willing, for where it will continue to be. The poem 'The Legend of John Henry' maps the author’s own familial connection to Appalachia and the generational ties that extend beyond the region."
Imani Mixon
Tina Turner Holds Herself Together
vinyl, photo
2021
"I’m Imani Mixon, an award-winning journalist and screenwriter, whose multimedia work frequently and enthusiastically centers Black women, our wellbeing, and our cultural impact. While reporting on Black woman icons including Aaliyah, Aretha Franklin, and Tina Turner, I noticed that their origin stories, artistries and legacies are rooted in and marked by trauma. Over time, these diva’s discographies and biographies engage fans in an age-old game of “do as I say, not as I do”. Their distant yet desired lives have become portals for Black woman (myself included) to interrogate the gendered expectations and performance of womanhood, especially in interpersonal relationships. Although these superstars are shielded by the fragile and porous veil of celebrity, their experiences of abuise and exploitation are not unique — it’s apparent in the everyday lives and interactions of Black women everywhere. This poem represents the ways I endeavor to honor the interiorities, complexities, mundanity, and sacredness of life as a Black woman."
The poem “Tina Turner Holds Herself Together”
“We been here before-Wrapping our arms around each other Our lace gloved hands Kissing our shoulders Hair a honey black brown Like the teacup terriers the fashion girls wear In their big big purses-As they steal their way bigger I dream my way Out of Nutbush, onto the road At center stage Away from him Away from home And call it a miracle They look at me As I vaseline my glisten I am all legs and hair but somehow no human Just glimmer Just legs and hair and shimmering somewhere Not feeling."