How many museums not only tell grounded stories with honesty and celebration but welcome their visitors with a community living room and a book vending machine? The Northwest African American Museum is advertised as a “museum that uses Black heritage to cultivate healing and hope for all,” and I sensed that as soon as I walked in. In the main exhibit, screens flash with students and community members naming their heroes, claiming the museum as “ours,” and offering it to all as “yours.” Plaques, posters, and art document Black Americans’ victories, setbacks, injustices, pain, joy, and resilience with respect and love. NAAM is a welcoming, celebratory, healing space, and the art and artists of the exhibit Positive Frequencies embody that.
Positive Frequencies features “iconic Neo-POP artist” C. Bennett, along with local artists Eric D. Salisbury, Myron Curry, and Samuel Blackwell. Bennett’s mixed media pieces line half the gallery, while paintings by Salisbury, Curry, and Blackwell line the other half. Music by artists like Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, and Nina Simone plays, immersing the viewer in the exhibit’s thesis: music can heal by “transcending societal and cultural boundaries.” All four featured visual artists approached that theme differently, but when all the pieces are viewed as a collection, with the music they sought to capture and elevate playing around them, their connection and power are deep and palpable.
Photo courtesy of Elite Collective