(black)-American conveys a journey from Africa to America as black people endeavor to establish a sense of home, culture, and identity. The exhibition will start with work from Jacksonville’s Sister City Port Elizabeth and move on to the work of an Angolan artist that expresses his cultural polarity as an immigrant American. From there we bridge into work of Caribbean artists, and end with Jacksonville artist who are African Descendants of Slavery and cannot trace their lineage yet maintain black identity.
This exhibition opened Juneteenth and the timeline overlaps The Fourth of July, and Jacksonville’s Carnival, therefore we invite guests to ponder the path to freedom and identity as black people in America whether as an immigrant or a descendant of slavery. Artist chose to display liberation through festivals such as Afro-Punk and Carnival. Others chose to capture identity in textiles, hair, and portraiture. This exhibit will ask the public to examine various presentations of blackness and how multiple people have combined backgrounds to establish culture in a new home.
