(Left) Keisha Scarville, Untitled from Passport Series (Black Dots), 2014; (Center) Keisha Scarville, Untitled from Passport Series (Black Stars), 2018; (Right) Keisha Scarville, Untitled from Passport Series, 2017. Courtesy of the Artist.

Carry Over

featuring Layo Bright (MFA Fine Arts ’18), Anna Parisi (MFA Fine Arts ’18), and Saya Woolfalk

Curated by Kalia Brooks Nelson

Smack Mellon

Opening Reception: Saturday, June 2, 2018, 12—6 PM

Exhibition Dates: June 2—30, 2018, Wednesday—Sunday, 12—6 PM

92 Plymouth St

Brooklyn, NY 11201

AFRICA’SOUT! and Smack Mellon are pleased to present the group exhibition Carry Over: New Voices from the Global African Diaspora curated by Kalia Brooks Nelson. The exhibition will be on view 2 – 30 June 2018 at Smack Mellon, located at 92 Plymouth Street, Brooklyn NY.

Carry Over: New Voices from the Global African Diaspora brings together the work of 10 contemporary artists: Firelei Báez, Layo Bright, Melissa Calderón, Baseera Khan, Stephanie A Lindquist, Jasmine Murrell, Anna Parisi, Keisha Scarville, Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum and Saya Woolfalk. Each of these women artists exposes audiences to the varied, lived experiences of migration, and the wide range of themes surrounding it. Concerned with both the tangible and intangible matter that women carry, each artist positions women as the driving forces who carry memories, stories, emotions, traditions, artifacts, objects, culture, religion, science, and technology as they move through time and space. In a period when women make up half of those migrating, and their stories are often excluded from the narratives of migration, this exhibition puts women of African descent at the forefront, expanding the discourses of migration and the processes of identifying oneself and community in the context of social and cultural transit.

This exhibition is the first produced by AFRICA’SOUT! and marks a shift to an alternative fundraising approach with a month-long exhibition as opposed to a one night auction-fête. Sale of artwork throughout the run of the exhibition will benefit AFRICA’SOUT! and Smack Mellon, both registered 501c3 organizations. The collaboration underscores the commitment of two organizations dedicated to celebrating artists who dare to make radical change and to forging partnerships which amplify that effort.  For more information about available works contact  team@africasout.com.

Celebration 2018 will be held in honor of the artists on Friday, 1 June from 7PM – 11PM.To purchase tickets please visit www.africasout.com. Ticket proceeds will fund AFRICA’SOUT!’s operating budget and programming that supports its mission to honor, support and defend artists who radically change the narrative around Africa and its Diaspora, first and foremost, for themselves.

Please join us for the public opening Saturday, 2 June from 12PM – 6PM including an Artist Talk moderated by Curator, Kalia Brooks Nelson at 3PM.  Forthcoming is an illustrated catalogue with essays by Curator, Kalia Brooks Nelson and Executive Director of AFRICA’SOUT!, Kibra A Yohannes.

More info available via AFRICA’SOUT! Learn more about Anna Parisi, Layo Bright,and Saya Woolfalk.