To Be Seen: Pen, Lens & Soul at The Met

It’s been a few months since I’ve written for a publication. After the spring of last year, I took a hiatus to rest my writer’s brain. However, it’s nice to get back to pitching and writing for public platforms again. It’s fitting that my first published piece of 2020 is an essay about the impact of The Beautiful Project, a collective and organization that has a direct hand in cultivating the woman and artist that I am today. Here are a few of my words about our monumental exhibition, Pen, Lens & Soul : The Story of The Beautiful Project at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

“Housed in one of the most significant and prominent art museums in the world, it is very special to witness this moment of The Beautiful Project’s journey. This year, the Met celebrates 150 years since its opening in 1870, which was a definitive time when the perspectives of Black girls and women were not valued nor heard. Historically, and even in present time, the collections of art in the Met lean to Eurocentric values and ideologies. While the museum has made strides of inclusivity in diverse art and artists over the years, its evolution does not readily and easily include the perspective of Black girls and women, particularly those who are not considered to be a part of the valued canon of artists that the museum usually displays.

Pen, Lens & Soul is a call and response to the multidimensional lives of Black girls and women. Our Founder and Executive Director Jamaica Gilmer explains, “For a moment, we wanted to offer Black girls and women what it felt like to be at our house. This space of sisterhood that can include hope, that sometimes includes despair, where no one is perfect, but we are committed to trying. Together we created and declared that we can in fact see each other & the world should see us too.” The images and words on the walls of the Met depict us in our most natural state — we’re laughing, we’re thinking, we’re dancing, and just free to be ourselves. And museum visitors from all over the world are able to walk the exhibition hallways and see Black girls and women fully present in our authentic entirety.
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— "Black Girls and Women from Durham Visit Their Art at The Met, Indy Week

Read my full article via Indy Week here.

Photo by Kaci Kennedy for The Beautiful Project