precarity | possibility

To inhabit Black skin in the United States is to live with the understanding of the inescapable precarity of Black life. A culture of violent oppression has rendered the most mundane of daily activities (grocery shopping, jogging, driving, sleeping) a death sentence for Black people. Still, from the moment Africans were brought to this continent, they have been generators of an exuberant creative output reflecting a brand of possibility born of relentless resistance and resilience. Navigating the polarity of imminent danger and endless possibility is at once the singular triumph and crushing burden of Black people in the Americas. 

The artists featured in precarity | possibility embody what Dr. Tina Campt* refers to as “The creativity, ingenuity, cunning and courage that allow [Black people] to acknowledge the forces that would define us, and yet not succumb to the definition.”

*A Black Gaze: Artists Changing How We See, 2021. MIT Press

Confirmed artists (additional artists TBD)

C. J. Murphy

Lennie Vernet

Kimberly Cartwright

Jade Wilson

Zaire McPhearson

Samantha Everette

precarity | possibility is conceived by Gail Belvett, principal of The Art Chose Me. precarity | possibility  is a zero commission exhibition that will originate from the Hayti Heritage Center with site-specific iterations available to venues across the Triangle. 

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