“Aiming for Freedom: Race,  Reparations & Right Paths,” an interactive traveling art exhibition featuring Black feminist artistic visions of our shared liberation is on display at the YMI Cultural Center at its corner space at the intersection of Eagle and South Market Streets.

We are excited to share this powerful work during the Civic Season, the period of time between Juneteenth and July fourth. This season, we are reminded of the struggles and the hard-won victories in our ongoing journey to form a “more perfect union.” The exhibition includes works from four artists and consists of sculptures, textiles, paintings, and installations. 

“Aiming for Freedom: Race,  Reparations & Right Paths,” has been curated and organized by K. Melchor Quick Hall (she/her), a popular education and community-based researcher. She is the author of Naming a Transnational Black Feminist Framework: Writing in  Darkness which she shared with a Asheville community of writers, Le Mot Noir, late last year. As a New America Us@250 Lumina Foundation Fellow, Hall is organizing the show’s movement throughout the country. The show comes to our community from Avery Research Center in Charleston, SC.

Joining Dr. Hall and the traveling exhibition are local artists represented by Noir Collective AVL, a gallery on the Block that spotlights Black artists. Pieces by Sala Menaya, Jenny Pickens, Chris Collins and DeWayne Barton are interspersed with work from the traveling exhibition’s featured artists:

• MARLA MCLEOD, FIBER ARTIST, PAINTER, & SCULPTOR

• KIMBERLY LOVE RADCLIFFE, FIBER ARTIST & QUILTER

• ARRELL ANN GANE-MCCALLA, SCULPTOR & MIXED MEDIA ARTIST

• DESTINY PALMER, PAINTER, MURALIST & COLOR THEORIST