Culture & Community | Hamden | Arts & Culture | Visual Arts | ConnCORP | Arts & Anti-racism
Markeshia Ricks Photos.
After successfully opening the Lab at ConnCORP in the former Newhall Street School, ConnCORP Chief Executive Erik Clemons had an idea of transforming a hallway of the building into an art gallery. He knew he needed a trusted artistic partner to help bring his idea to life—and found it in nico w. okoro and her husband Malik, founders of the bldg fund.
This Thursday at 6 p.m., The Orchid Gallery at the Lab will make its public debut featuring eight New Haven artists in an inaugural exhibition called Gather. okoro said the exhibition is an exploration of “cultural artifacts, oral histories, and stories … and what that means in the context of being a participating member of your community, thinking about diaspora and being from a wholly different place and to build family and community here.”
Though the Lab at ConnCORP is adorned with art by New Haven artists like Kwadwo Adae, the community incubator space is best known for providing business education and being a home to innovative entrepreneurship. Clemons said during a walk-through of the gallery space in March that The Orchid Gallery is a chance to showcase the multidimensionality of ConnCORP and support local artists.
“We love art,” Clemons said. “Art is the expression of the soul, quite frankly.
“I wanted to lift up the voices and expressions of Black and Brown artists, who are local to here and didn’t have enough space to speak,” he added.
Making space for artists is at the core of the work of the bldg fund, which specializes in platforming the work of BIPOC artists. okoro said Clemons' vision for the gallery space was appealing, in part, because of the complexities it presented. The gallery is not a traditional space like a museum, where people go specifically to see a thing on display. It is part of a space that is activated by the people who gather there.
Unlike traditional exhibition processes that can be years in the making, both okoro and Clemons let urgency help shape the project. An artist call and selection for the inaugural show happened within the first few months of the year so that the inaugural show would be ready to share publicly by April.
“As a curator, I come from museums and galleries and that comes with a whole lot of bureaucracy,” okoro said. “You might work on a show that is three years out. What we heard from artists about what they wanted and needed was urgent.
“It was space to show their work, space to gather,” okoro added, “literally, space to be in dialogue with people. The gift of Mr. Erik Clemons opening this space at the end of last year and being open to what could be – it just kind of happened quickly and organically.”
okoro said the applying artists, and those ultimately selected, helped shape the inaugural show’s theme.
Arvia Walker: “A lot of the work, for me, was to heal the devastation of losing the adults in my life.”
“The concept of Gather kind of came out of the applications themselves, especially reading through artists statements,” she said. “People are doing the work of culture bearing in a way that is important and that also feels different from the work that I do and the work that Erik does.
“It’s really specific to art and visual art and I was just really excited to see what it would look like to bring eight artists together with that kind of thematic vision,” she said.
Some of the exhibiting artists are first-timers like Arvia Walker. A New Haven transplant who is originally from Hartford, Walker said participating in the inaugural show is a chance to own her identity as an artist.
“I do political organizing as my day job,” she said. “I’ve been using my art as an organizing mechanism but now saying ‘I’m an artist,’ and I’ve been an artist since I was a kid so these last few years I’ve been trying to step into that in a more intentional way.”
Walker’s work for the exhibit focuses on archival photography, particularly of her grandfather, who became an ancestor in 2019.
“I submitted work I was doing for my own healing,” she said. “A lot of the work, for me, was to heal the devastation of losing the adults in my life.”
Kulimushi Barongozi, who moved to New Haven by way of a few other stops in the United States after moving from the Democratic Republic of Congo, said he and a friend have done smaller exhibitions around town in cafes and other random places.
“I think for me, it was a long winter and this is a really exciting opportunity to get out and do something inspiring,” said the artist, who creates in mixed-media painting, sculpture, storytelling, writing, and filmmaking.
Ruby Gonzalez Hernandez, artist and founder of the community of practice Fair-Side, said she thinks a lot about how art can transform spaces. She also thinks a lot about her safety and that of other artists in the context of that work. It mattered to her that both were taken seriously by Clemons and okoro.
“I’ve seen the work that ConnCORP does,” she said. “I’ve seen the work that nico does and I’ve been able to approach both people and places with genuine questions and concerns and have them met in a responsible way.
“There is this bubbling happening–that’s been happening for a while—where organizations are being held to a higher standard and within that, we can see who is actually walking this walk and where can we actually show up and be taken seriously,” she added. “I’m excited to be here and I’m excited to see what’s to come.”