TERRE HAUTE, Ind. (WTWO/WAWV) — A new upcoming exhibit titled Public Blackness will feature several unique forms of artwork and will take place over the next few months in all three of Indiana State University’s galleries.
The event will be conducted by Professor Doctor Adeyemi Doss of the Indiana State University Department of Multidisciplinary Studies and will be curated by Gallery Director Tanmaya Bingham.
There will be a collective reception for all three galleries on Thursday, Feb. 16 from 4-8 p.m. The reception will include presentations, plays, songs, and other performances by the artists included in the shows and other speakers and scholars from 5:30-7:00 p.m. in the Margaret L. Boyce Recital Hall of the Landini Center for Performing and Fine Arts. the artworks will range from interactive to static and will include some virtual-reality-based works.
The next day, Friday, Feb. 17, a panel discussion will be held from 3-4 p.m. in the Turman Gallery in the Fine Arts Building with speakers Kori Miller, the Executive Director of the Evansville African American Museum, and Valery Hart-Craig, the Assistant Director of the Charles E. Brown African American Cultural Center and others. All the events are free and open to the public.
This expansive exhibition is supported and partnered by other art institutions and museums in the community including but not limited to the Swope Art Museum, which will display artworks created by African American Artists from ISU’s Permanent Art Collection, Art Spaces Inc. currently working on a public art project to honor the Lost Creek Settlement, and the Vigo County Historical Society & Museum which will be presenting author Fannie Blumberg’s Rowena Teena Tot books in the Turman Gallery.
The multiple-gallery exhibition aims to focus on and spread greater awareness around recurring local and national racial issues. Public Blackness was designed to be a safe project and platform for students and the Wabash Valley community to engage, learn, and support positive change through action and to progress from outdated and unconscious biases.
Exhibition Statement by Dr. Adeyemi Doss:
“Public Blackness demonstrates how the Black body in a racially divided society gradually disappears from our understanding of what it means to be a human. What transpires when the Black body is captured in our gaze—a gaze that has been trained to only view it as a problem everywhere it exists? What happens when the myths from our past—which were frequently used to justify its destruction—become ingrained in our imagination of its existence today? One should leave the exhibition knowing a bit more about what makes the Black body vulnerable to the violence it still endures today.”
Dr. Adeyemi Doss
OPENING EVENTS:
Thursday, Feb. 16:
- Public Reception
- All Galleries: Turman Gallery, Yang Family University Art Gallery, Bare-Montgomery Gallery
- 4-8 p.m.
- Presentation & Performance
- Margaret L. Boyce Recital Hall, Landini Center for Performing and Fine Arts
- 5:30-7 p.m.
- Presenters: Dr. Adeyemi Doss, Kori Miller, Valerie Hart-Craig, Milo Yang Golding, and others.
- Play: White Nostalgia, written by Dr. Bryant Clayton, directed by Arthur Feinsod, performed by Kiara Dowell and Brad Venable
- Song: Down By the River, music & lyrics by Dr. Bryant Clayton, sung by Taylor Franklin, keyboard by Anthony Howard.
Friday, Feb. 17:
- Panel Discussion
- Turman Gallery, Fine Arts Building, 645 Chestnut Street, Terre Haute, IN 47809)
- 3-4 p.m.
EXHIBIT INFORMATION:
- PUBLIC BLACKNESS I
- Dates: Jan. 17 – March 17, 2023
- Location: Turman Gallery (Fine Arts Building) 645 Chestnut Street, Terre Haute, IN 47809
- Artists: Dr. Adeyemi Doss, Abe Abraham, (Abanar Productions LLC.), Scattered (Rada Studios LLC).
- PUBLIC BLACKNESS II
- Dates: Jan. 30 – Feb. 24, 2023
- Location: Yang Family University Art Gallery (Landini Center for Performing and Fine Arts) 300 North 7th Street, Terre Haute, IN 47809
- Artists: Abe Abraham (Abanar Productions LLC.), Courtland Blade, Idris Habib, Ayana Ross, Dread Scott
- PUBLIC BLACKNESS III
- Dates: Feb. 6 – 24, 2023
- Location: Bare-Montgomery Gallery (Bare-Montgomery Gallery, Fairbanks Hall)
- Artist: Tajiah Jones
