Black Pacifica is the culmination of a collaborative Summer School Program between NewCrits and The Black Image Center. 

Thirteen developing artists were selected to participate in a virtual Summer Mentorship program comprising three studio visits followed by continued guidance towards an exhibition, equipping them with both studio practice insights as well as professional mentorship.  The mentors were EJ Hill, Devin Kenny, Ajay Kurian, Erin Jane Nelson, Farah Al Qasimi, Sara Greenberger Rafferty, and Curtis Talwst Santiago. The exhibition is curated by Blessing Greer-Mathurin under the mentorship of Ajay Kurian. 

Black Pacifica forges a generative space to contemplate the localities of Black identity. The title, inspired by the Chrysler Pacifica, alludes to the vehicle’s iconic silhouette commonly seen in Angeleno communities, symbolizing accessibility and connection. Pacifica also evokes the Pacific Ocean, opening a space for reflection on modernity and the evolving diasporic experience alongside Western expansion through both colonialism and contemporary migration. 

Through varied approaches, the artists here express the everyday and augmented realities of  Black subjectivity. This exhibition is a love letter - through sculpture, photography, textile, and installation - to the holistic imprint of Black histories onto identity, as well as the movements that build, shift, and change these very identities. 

The artists begin with lived experiences in order to find connection, bridging the personal and the collective. This can be seen notably in the works of Jabari Wimbley, Brandon Foushee, Leeban Farah. Wimbley anchors his personal reflections through tapestry, embedding the complex economic and social contexts of textiles through collaged materials, resulting in a piece that echoes feelings of fragmentation. Foushee continues this thread by investigating familial identity through photo assemblage, using both archival and authored images to create layered articulations of self and others. Farah further explores themes of the self through meticulously staged scenes, ranging from devoted gatherings to solitary portraits.

In this spirit, all thirteen artists wrestle with the placeholders of identity and how it’s ascribed, stretching their capacity of self-identification and investigation through their works while affirming the malleability and mobility of identity over time.