Discussions

Preserving Legacies

Join us as we explore the process of preserving the legacies and stories of Black culture through a series of presentations by artists and archivists.

Participants include Savannah Wood, artist and Executive Director of Afro Charities, who is creating an infrastructure to increase digital, archival access to the 130-year-old Afro-American (AFRO) newspaper catalog; Jelisa Blumberg, Creative Director of Black Baltimore Digital Database; Larry W. Cook, artist and Assistant Professor of Photography at Howard University; and Webster Phillips III, artist, archivist, and grandson of longtime Baltimore Afro-American photographer Henry Phillips Sr. who has documented his grandfather’s work on ihenryphoto.com.

The program will be moderated by Community Arts Fellow for the Billie Holiday Center for Liberation Arts Jeneanne Collins.

Free. REGISTER HERE.

Program Schedule

2 p.m. – Check-in, auditorium doors open

2:30 p.m. – Program begins

4 p.m. – Program ends

Participants

Jelisa Blumberg

Jelisa Blumberg is a transdisciplinary designer and researcher, with a focus on architecture and lighting, based in Brooklyn, NY and Baltimore, MD. She is an adjunct assistant professor at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, and a core member of Dark Matter University. She holds a Masters of Architecture and a Masters of Fine Arts in Lighting Design from The New School, Parsons School of Design, in New York along with a BFA in Design from the University of Texas at Austin. She is the creative director of the Black Baltimore Digital Database.

Larry W. Cook

Larry W. Cook is an interdisciplinary artist working across photography, video, and mixed media. Cook received his MFA from George Washington University and his BA in Photography from SUNY Plattsburgh. Cook has exhibited his work nationally at the Kemper Art Museum, MoMA PS1, the National Portrait Gallery, and internationally at Schiefe Zähne in Germany and the 2022 Venice Biennial in Venice, Italy. His work is in the public collections of the Museum of Modern Art, Harvard Art Museums, Baltimore Museum of Art, and other institutions. Cook is an Assistant Professor at Howard University.

Webster Phillips III

Webster Phillips III, is maintaining the photojournalist tradition of his father, Irving H. Phillips Jr. (Baltimore Sun), and grandfather, I. Henry Phillips Sr. (Afro-American), producing an artistic, and graphic body of work about the Baltimore of his generation. In 2008 he began scanning his grandfather’s 4”x5” black and white negatives and currently has over 10,000 photographs in their database. During the pandemic he began virtual ID sessions with elders to identify unknown people in places in the archives. He is focused on embracing the digital age and making The I.Henry Collection available online and accessible for educational purposes.

Savannah Wood

Savannah Wood is an artist with deep roots in Baltimore and Los Angeles. Wood works primarily in photography, text, and installation to explore how spirituality, domesticity, and our relationships to place shape our identities. Wood is also the Executive Director of Afro Charities, where she is creating infrastructure to increase access to the 130-year-old AFRO American Newspapers’ extensive archives. Wood is a graduate cum laude of the University of Southern California, a 2022 Saul Zaentz Innovation Fund fellow, 2022 Creative Capital finalist, and a 2019 – 2021 Robert W. Deutsch Foundation fellow. Like four generations of ancestors before her, she lives and works in Baltimore, Maryland, sharing and preserving Black stories.

Jeneanne Collins

Jeneanne Collins is a poet, writer, and community artist. She is currently a second year Community Arts Fellow with the Inheritance Baltimore – Billie Holiday Center for Liberation Arts at Johns Hopkins University. She spent the last year collecting oral histories and facilitating intergenerational events throughout Baltimore City, working with storyteller, griot, BCPS English teacher of 46 years and Elder-in-Residence Charlie Dugger as well as author, writer, producer, educator, and Artist-in-Residence D. Watkins. Currently, she is continuing her cohort collaboration with post-docs, historians, archivists, and librarians specifically to create art and programming situated in the archives. Her most recent project is a multidisciplinary installation and walk of remembrance honoring the Black ancestors of the JHU Homewood campus. Jeneanne believes that archives transform the power of community and that “Your Inheritance becomes your Legacy.” She holds an M.F.A. from Maryland Institute College of Art in Community Arts.

The Details

Location BMA Main Campus Cost Free; Registration required

Dates & Times