Joy at the Root

February 4 – 25, 2022

Guest curated by Elizabeth TiBlanc, this show explores the representation, reflection, and celebration of cultural practices and traditions rooted in the African diaspora. This exhibition aims to include all the ways in which we celebrate Blackness through heritage and reclamation. These representations include portraits, documentation, and/or visual representations of cultural traditions such as objects, food, textiles, etc.

Elizabeth TiBlanc is an Afro Latina artist educator. She is a former Boston Public School teacher, and she joins the faculty at Massasoit Community College this semester teaching a course in the history of Black Art Movements.

: Youveline Joseph, Binderella

: Myriam “Mimi” Desir, Cultural Avenue

: Myriam “Mimi” Desir, Lady Hibiscus

: Fabienne Bazile, Les Marchandes (The Market Women)

: E. Zayas, Piece of my heART

: Kenard Smith Jr., Significant Woman, 2020

: Jennifer Hughes, The First Discovery, 2003

: Niambi Kai Bien-Aime, Larenn Des Arts

: Gordon Parks, Washington D.C., (Reverend Vondell Gassaway, Pastor of the St. Martin’s Spiritual Church, standing in a bowl of sacred water, banked with roses, each one of which he blesses and gives to a member who has been previously anointed and prayed for by a long line of disciples during the annual “Flower Bowl Demonstration”), August, 1942

: Gordon Parks, Anacostia D.C., Frederick Douglass Housing Project (boys playing leap frog near the housing project), July 1942

: Gordon Parks, Anacostia D. C., Frederick Douglass Housing Project (cooling off under the community sprayer), July 1942

: Gordon Parks, Washington D.C. (young men preparing to receive degrees from Howard University), June 1942

: Gordon Parks, Anacostia D.C., Frederick Douglass Housing Project (a dance group), July 1942

: Gordon Parks, Washington, D.C. (pouring lemonade at a birthday party on Seaton Road), June 1942

: Gordon Parks, Washington D.C. (sign in front of a church), June 1942

: Barrington Edwards, Codeswitch 2, 2021. 24×36 inch digital art and mixed media on canvas

: Barrington Edwards, Codeswitch 1, 2021. 24×36 inch digital art and mixed media on canvas

: Myriam “Mimi” Desir, Healing Table

: Julio España, Where Strength Comes From

: Julio España, You Can’t Phaze Me