Rest is Power Exhibit Opening
Rest is Power is an exhibition that amplifies visual narratives of rest for global Black people. In a selection of artworks that span photography, painting, and new media, the curators underscore Black Rest as a radical act of resistance. In this exhibition, Dr. Joan Morgan, Kira Joy Williams, and Dr. Deborah Willis explore rest as a healing modality for Black people.
Rest is Power provides an experience of liberation through visual repair. Depicted here is a small sample of the myriad ways Black people find rest while enduring the daily, multifaceted aggressions visited upon Black bodies. The exhibition is an invitation to disrupt toxic, lingering paradigms of work equaling worth, reminding us that the Black body’s value in the “new” world was originally assigned, not through the lens of mutual humanity, but solely by its capacity for physical, emotional and sexual labor. In these pieces, Black Rest resists, revives, and replenishes. The artists in this exhibition create from a spring of inspiration that is deeply rooted in their own personal and artistic practices. Through various scenes —— from domestic settings to landscapes —— the more than twenty artists in Rest is Power both image and imagine Black Rest, engaging this construct uniquely through material culture, spiritual encounters, familial memory, and nature.
The artists making a connection to rest are: Kalila Ain, Zalika Azim, Daveed Baptiste, Laylah Amatullah Barrayn, Kennedy Carter, Renee Cox, Steven M. Cummings, Adama Delphine Fawundu, Lola Flash, Chris Friday, Cyd Fulton, Jamaica Gilmer, Allison Janae Hamilton, Chester Higgins, Deborah Jack, Savannah Faith Jackson, Lisa Leone, Tyler Mitchell, Stevia Ndoe, Gordon Parks, John Pinderhughes, Jeffrey Henson Scales, Jamel Shabazz, Cornelius Tulloch, Dae Tyas, Colette Veasey-Cullors, Adreinne Waheed, Carrie Mae Weems, D’Angelo Lovell Williams, Kira Joy Williams, and Dr. Deborah Willis.
This exhibition is an initiative of the Black Rest Project (BRP) at the Center for Black Visual Culture at NYU. The Black Rest Project was inspired by artist, theologist, and activist Tricia Hersey, who created the liberating framework of Rest is Resistance.
For more information about the Black Rest Project and the Center for Black Visual Culture, please visit cbvc.nyu.edu.
Time: 5:00-7:30 pm EDT
Free!
