Preservation; Safekeeping. Emiliano Cáceres Manzano Photo.
Three pairs of hands reach for a basket of old photos. They hold the photos gently: the paper is yellowing and the edges are burnt. The hands are diverse. One pair is perfectly manicured, another is darker than the others. One of the photographs is of more hands, pinky fingers wrapped tightly in a promise. Warm light gives the scene a cozy and pensive glow, enveloping the viewer in its snugness.
This scene is from Brock Bowen’s photograph Preservation; Safekeeping, now on view at the Orchid Gallery at 496 Newhall St. The gallery is an exhibition space dedicated to showcasing the work of artists of the greater New Haven area, particularly BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) creators. Bowen’s piece is part of the Gallery’s fourth exhibition, titled “In Our Hands,” which is now on view until July 3.
As the title makes clear, the focus of the exhibition is hands: how they create, preserve, and connect. Curator and bldg fund co-founder nico w. okoro has brought together four artists — Bowen, Odette Chavez-Mayo, Merik Goma, and Tazje Henry-Phillip — to show off their unique approach to the theme. Each of the works in the exhibition tackles the theme through a different medium, ranging from digital photography to film photography to painting.
okoro’s approach to curation is rooted in cultivating a space for BIPOC artists to flourish, not at all dissimilar from the themes in Preservation; Safekeeping. When she and her husband, Malik D. L. Okoro, founded bldg fund in 2020, it was to develop and amplify the work of BIPOC artists through creative consulting and entrepreneurial development.
nico w. okoro, Jahkeeva Morgan, Markeshia Ricks, Amina Kokhar, and Jesse Phillips. Contributed Photo.
“The themes for all Orchid Gallery exhibitions emanate from the artists themselves,” okoro said over email. “As a curator, my job is to look through all of the applications ... from there, a conceptual framework or theme emerges and the exhibition begins to take shape.”
okoro’s curation results in exhibitions that deeply engage with their themes. Elsewhere in the gallery of “In Our Hands,” a nude woman stands behind an old camera, raising her hand as though to signal that she is about to snap a photo. This is Odette Chavez-Mayo’s self-portrait, Inanna, which she shot on film and developed in a darkroom, an extremely time-consuming process.
This level of involvement, Chavez-Mayo writes in the exhibition checklist, is what brings her to the medium, letting her “enjoy the physicality of making pictures come to life by laboring in the dark(room).”
Chavez-Mayo’s hands are literally all over this piece: Inanna brings into focus hands as a method of self-creation, from process to the image itself. Through her involved methods, her hands are key to bringing herself into focus, and her piece, with its camera aimed squarely at the viewer and her hand in the process of directing, centers the act of creation.
It’s a remarkably self-possessed piece that represents part of what bldg fund and okoro seek to encourage: artists using their work as a method of self-exploration.
Odette Chavez-Mayo and Merik Goma with their works. nico w. okoro Photo.
Making art on one’s own terms is key to the Orchid Gallery, which is a branch of the Connecticut Community Outreach Revitalization Program (ConnCORP) and its not-for-profit arm, the Connecticut Center for Arts & Technology (ConnCAT).
ConnCORP aims to provide opportunities for economic development in local communities, with a focus on those that have been chronically under-resourced (their largest current project, for instance, is revitalizing a section of Dixwell Avenue, once a self-sustaining Black business corridor). Through its partnership with bldg fund, these two organizations enable local artists to engage in the work of self-creation that Chavez-Mayo’s work exemplifies.
Part of ConnCORP and bldg fund’s mission, too, is connecting BIPOC artists to each other. That sense of connection is especially present in the exhibition’s highlight, Merik Goma’s photograph Your Absence is My Monument Untitled 1. In it, two figures, one old and one young, kneel and embrace in what looks like a living room.
Tazje Henry-Phillip with her work. nico w. okoro Photo.
The atmosphere is gently surreal. Newspaper is strewn about and light emphasizes a single white stone propped in a patch of moss and flowers on the wooden floor. The piece is large and ambiguous, encouraging questions and long looking. The longer you look, the more you may wonder about the figures’ relationship, or maybe you’ll notice the bouquet tucked away on a lounge chair in a corner.
By calling for engagement with the photo’s ambiguities, Goma builds a connection with the viewer. Because of the image’s surrealism, the artist’s hand feels especially present when viewing the piece, as do the two figures’ hands, wrapped in an embrace and positioned in the center of the frame.
Where hands, for Bowen and Chavez-Mayo, were symbols of preservation and creation, Goma shows the potential for hands to be a symbol of connection. okoro’s robust support system facilitates all of the above, making for an exciting and meaningful exhibition that showcases what infrastructure for the arts can enable.
bldg fund and ConnCORP’s next exhibition, “Beholder,” opens July 10th at the Orchid Gallery.