400: A Collective Flight of Memory

In 1619, “20 and odd negroes” arrived off the coast of Virginia. You can go to the beach where the ships arrived and stand in the same sand, under the same sky and look at the same ocean that those enslaved Africans witnessed. There is a timelessness to that moment. There is a connection to a cultural memory that is passed down. Now is 2019, I want to discuss the black American experience, but it is not my story to tell alone. 400: A Collective Flight of Memory is an art exhibition made in conversation and collaboration with Black artists of the diaspora. The exhibition includes art from Melissa Alexander, Larry Poncho Brown, Tiffany Charesse, Kevin Cole, Najee Dorsey, Maurice Evans, LaToya Hobbs, Grace Kisa, Natrice Miller, Tracy Murrell, Charly Palmer, Derrick Phillips, Deborah Sheddrick, Jasmine Williams and others. 

The conversation is necessary to begin to understand the breadth of the black American experience. The stories told by other people help to give you perspective on the things that are happening around you. The experiences of other Black Americans inform my understanding of what is possible. Whether it’s the story of the blacks that escaped the racial terrorism of the South or the Black Panther’s food program or a Black businessman in Atlanta desegregating a neighborhood.  All these stories are the collective of blackness.