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Darrell Ann Gane-McCalla | Marla L. McLeod | Destiny Palmer | Kimberly Love Radcliffe | Anthony Peyton Young
Jewett Art Gallery
Jan. 25 - Feb. 28, 2025
Aiming for Freedom: Race, Reparations & Right Paths grew out of the Aiming for Justice: Race, Reparations & Right Paths workshop for US-based white inheritors of wealth, which took place for four years, from 2019-2022, at Pendle Hill Quaker Retreat & Conference Center outside of Philadelphia, PA. After transferring approximately $150K to Black individuals and organizations through a series of weeklong and month-long workshops, the interest in redistributive racial justice workshops waned alongside fading attention to the Black Lives Matter movements. The (ebb and flow of the) workshops made clear that economic and historical approaches to exploring racial harm and repair would always fall short of (re)imagining a future of shared liberation. This project goes beyond the technicalities of repairing the past and moves toward a collective visioning of a more just future.
Black feminist visions of shared liberation are centered in this exhibition, which invites viewers to explore local and national histories alongside borderless futures that promote our shared liberation and collective freedom. The show engages the work of core artists Darrell Ann Gane-McCalla, Marla L. McLeod, Destiny Palmer, Kimberly Love Radcliffe, and Anthony Peyton Young. Their practices, which include fiber arts, ceramics, sculpture, installation, and more, showcase a vibrant diversity of materials, techniques, and subjects. The artwork on display ranges from formal abstractions deeply concerned with color, texture, and shape to immediately recognizable representation. Approaches to storytelling both didactic and allusive explore narratives of racial harm and potential pathways for healing.
Aiming for Freedom is a project of Solidarity Arts & Education Decolonial initiatives (SAEDi) Collective, founded by K. Melchor Quick Hall. SAEDi advances contemporary freedom work through interactive arts experiences, popular education, and community-based research.
This traveling exhibition has been supported by a racial equity grant from Humanity in Action (for commissioned works from Destiny Palmer, Marla L. McLeod, and Darrell Ann Gane-McCalla), a New America (Lumina Foundation) Us@250 Fellowship, a Mass Cultural Council project grant, and a Mass Humanities "Expand Massachusetts Stories: Advancing Equity" grant. Wellesley College's Anti-Carceral Co+Laboratory, co-led by professors Laura Grattan and Jenny Musto, with the support of Liv Poulin, has created fertile ground for connecting to Massachusetts-based abolitionist organizations, including Sisters Unchained, New Beginnings Re-entry Services, and Families as Justice for Healing.
The exhibition is on view in the Jewett Art Gallery from Jan. 25 - Feb. 28, 2025. The Gallery, located on the main floor of the Jewett Arts Center at Wellesley College, is open to the public 10:00 am - 5:00 pm, 7 days a week. The Gallery is free to visit. Visitor parking is available at the Davis Parking Facility or Distribution Lot on Wellesley's campus; see here for more information about visiting campus and where to park.
To arrange a guided tour of the exhbition, or for more information, contact Gallery Director Samara Pearlstein at 781-283-2043 or spearls2@wellesley.edu
Select Exhibition Images
Darrell Ann Gane-McCalla is an artist committed to radical social change. She promotes visual art as a vital element in the struggle for human rights, and in the creation of new ways of living. Her own practice is primarily sculpture, illustration, and mixed media. Her community collaborations are mainly murals, mosaics, and workshops. She has directed murals across Boston, including at Paige Academy, The Strand Theatre, Boston GLASS Community Center, The Unitarian Universalist Urban Ministry, Davis Leadership Academy, and The City School. She has also assisted with mural projects with Philadelphia's Mural Arts Program, New York City's El Puente Academy for Peace and Justice, and Groundswell Community Mural Project.
Marla L. McLeod is a multi-cultural artist, curator, and educator. She was named one of the 2024 Boston Center of the Arts Studio Residents. In 2023, as the Aminah Robinson Resident Artist, she opened her first solo museum exhibition at the Columbus Museum of Art in Columbus, Ohio. Her work has been exhibited in spaces such as the Boston Sculptors Gallery, the 2022 deCordova Museum Triennial, the Boston Globe, and Black Portraitures at NYU. She has received first place for the Concord Art Francis N. Roddy competition, the Walter Feldman Fellowship from the Arts & Business Council of Greater Boston, and the Tisch Library Graduate Research Fellowship from Tufts University, among others. She is currently an adjunct professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and at Southern Connecticut State University in CT.
Destiny Palmer is trained as a painter, but her work explores the intersections of painting, history, and color, allowing it to blur the lines between painting, sculpture, and installation. Palmer explores and investigates what it means to be an artist, educator, and advocate for the arts. She has worked with various communities to create public art projects ranging from traditional murals to community-engaged and -led murals to digitally-created murals. Palmer received her Master of Fine Arts in Painting from Tyler School of Art at Temple University and her Bachelor's in Fine Art in Painting from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design.
Kimberly Love Radcliffe is a self-taught fiber artist from New London, CT. She is incompliant with the oppressive rules of traditional quiltmaking. Instead, she chooses to rely on the whispers of wise ancestors, intuition, and imagination to support her creativity. Resisting the rules set forth by others impelled Radcliffe to develop her voice and intention with her quilted art. Her colorful quilts tell stories of family, history, literature, and cultural traditions. These quilts archive eloquent memories and moments in time on this artist's journey. Her process involves various stitching techniques to create textures, mixed media construction, thread painting, and the use of repurposed materials. Her favorite color is green. When she is not creating art, Radcliffe enjoys growing indoor and outdoor plants.
Anthony Peyton Young is a Boston/Charleston-based artist born and raised in Charleston, WV. Working primarily in painting, drawing, ceramics, and collage, Young's work explores methods of memorializing, healing, family traditions, black/black queer intimacy, and the spaces we use to activate these actions. He earned his B.A. from West Virginia State University and his M.F.A. from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts/Tufts University. He has won awards such as the SMFA/Tufts Travelling Fellowship and the Walter Feldman Fellowship for Emerging Artists. His work is included in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Simmons University; and the Juliette Art Museum. He has also been featured in publications such as Gay Letter Magazine, New American Painting, Evergreen Review, and The Boston Globe. Young has presented his work at Simmons University, Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, and Harvard's Black Portraiture Conference.
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