Artist Talk: Of Yesterday and Tomorrow

Meet the young artists behind Of Yesterday and Tomorrow, a powerful exhibition exploring Black diasporic histories. The works in the exhibition draw from historical archives and ancestral memories. In this special artist talk, creators discuss their processes and inspirations.

This year’s cohort brings together a dynamic group of printmakers, theater artists, painters, filmmakers, and photographers, each immersed in archival research and personal inquiry. Over the course of six months, fellows participated in over 30 engagements—ranging from workshops and discussions to artist studio visits and institutional research—interrogating themes of ritual, reverence, ancestral memory, and radical pedagogy. In partnership with Afro Charities Archives, as well as visits to the Baltimore City Archives and Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, fellows activated archival materials as portals to reimagine lineage, resistance, and identity. Above artwork by Mathilde Mujanayi.