Exhibitions

EMBRACING BLACKNESS: DIASPORIC UNIONS

Customs House Museum / 200 South 2nd St. May 10 - July 27th

Ludie Amos
Alice Aida Ayers
Seyi Babalola
Olasubomi Aka-Bashorun
Marteja Bailey
Omari Booker
Brittney Boyd Bullock
LeXander Bryant
Jane Buis
Landry Butler
Bill Capshaw
Gail Clemons
Tina Curry
Samuel Dunson
Kimberly Dummons
William Edmondson+
Amanda Ewing
Jason Flack
Cynthia Gadsden
Earline Green
Bessie Harvey+
Alicia Henry+
Barbara Hodges
Leroy Hodges
Earl J. Hooks+
Jay (3 Woke) Jenkins
Alexis Jones
Henry L. Jones
Ted Jones
Gediyon Kifle
Wilson Lee Jr.
Dashawn Lewis
Hattie Marshall-Duncan
Toberta & Wokie Massaquoi-Wicks
Aundra McCoy
Rod McGaha
Armon Means
Lester Merriweather
LaKesha Moore
Andrew Morrison
Elisheba Mrozik
Michael Mucker
Althea Murphy-Price
Calvin Nicely
Sammie Nicely+
Jairo Prado
Greg Ridley+
Christine Roth
Ashley Seay
Thandiwe Shiphrah
Lorenzo Swinton
Betty Turner
Maya Turner
Gary L. White
Ramona Wiggins
Carlton Wilkinson
Donna Woodley
Kevin Wurm

The Customs House Museum & Cultural Center in collaboration with Crafting Blackness Initiative proudly present Embracing Blackness: Diasporic Unions in partnership with Tennessee Craft, ETSU Slocumb Galleries and support from the Tennessee Arts Commission. The exhibition celebrates work by artists of African descent based in Tennessee whose diverse multicultural heritages influence and visualize the Black identities and experiences. The public is invited to visit the exhibition with opening reception on May 10, Saturday from 5 to 7 p.m. with participating artists, reading by Poet Laureate Henry L. Jones, Thandiwe Shiphrah, and guest of honor County Mayor Wes Golden.

Co-curated by Crafting Blackness Initiative co-director Karlota Contreras-Koterbay and Tennessee Craft’s board director Carlton Wilkinson, the curatorial locus revolves around ‘Blackness as Inclusion,’ assertions of the vital reality of Black gazes’ capacity to embrace cultures.

The exhibition explores the Black identities coalesced around intercultural influences, forged by displacement, interracial unions and various geographic mobilities rooted from Africa across the seas. Participating artists identify as Black creatives as descendants, as they experience, living with, and being with Black culture that collectively defines Blackness in its myriad ways, a form of resistance to the aesthetic of exclusion, that has plagued the country’s history and social dynamics. Co-curator Carlton Wilkinson emphasizes, the “Black pigment in the physical definition includes the presence of all colors” as he adds, the combination of “parts of red, green, and yellow will make the color black.” In the United States, a country of migrants borne out of colonial enterprise, its Black people share lineages with many cultures and groups worldwide. Blacks who identify their lineage from the formerly enslaved groups, to labor and academics who came as migrants, refugees or scholars, and those from military service are as many shades and narratives intertwined made visible, understood and embraced.

As part of multi community engagement activities, ‘Embracing Blackness Panel’ and performance by Giovanni Rodriguez and Friends are scheduled on July 10, First Thursday during the Clarksville Crawl from 5 to 7 p.m. at the Customs House Museum & Cultural Center galleries The Embracing Blackness panelists are Samuel Dunson , Christine Roth, Rod McGaha, Gary L. White and Hattie Marshall Duncan, facilitated by co-curators Wilkinson and Contreras-Koterbay. The panel starts at 5 to 6 p.m. at the Customs House Museum galleries followed by the dance performance from 6 to 7 p.m. at the courtyard.

The exhibition is on view until July 27, 2025, and is part of the Crafting Blackness Initiative, a research, traveling exhibition and publication project on the 100 years history of Black Craft artists of Tennessee. Supported by the Tennessee Arts Commission, South Arts, East Tennessee Foundation, Bravissima! Women Sponsoring the Arts and various partners through ETSU Slocumb Galleries. Historical works on loan courtesy of institutional partners Knoxville Museum of Art, Trahern Family Collection of Austin Peay State University, Tom & O.E. Stigall Ethnic Museum & Library, Allison and Martha Alfonso, Bill Hickerson, Carlton Wilkinson, and the Carl Van Vechten Gallery of Fisk University.

For more information about the Crafting Blackness Initiative, please visit https://tennesseecraft.org/cra... or email co-director Karlota Contreras-Koterbay at contrera@etsu.edu. The Customs House Museum and Cultural Center is located at 200 S 2nd St., Clarksville TN 37040 with viewing hours daily except Mondays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Please contact the museum for handicapped services accommodations at 931.648.5780.