Join us for the closing program of Conductions: Black Imaginings II – a dialogue between exhibiting artists Noah Beckham and Bridgette Hickey, moderated by Jaleesa Johnston (exhibition curator and Curatorial Coordinator). Reflecting on the role of performance art within the show, this event celebrates the artists of Conductions: Black Imaginings II with the release of the exhibition publication and thoughtful conversation.
Noah Beckham
Trekked from the Great Miami to the Willamette River, Noah collected an MFA from Willamette University in 2023. Since then, they have been making Art for life’s sake, pondering the next river to rest at. Dimorph is Noah’s visual motif, an obsession that is slowly infecting everything they own.
Bridgette Hickey
Bridgette comes from blue mud earth tenders, people who prayed fiercely, with written words, hands on bodies, with water and song, in dance and ecstatic expression. Her practice includes growing plants, archiving through prose, immersive installations, earth ceremony, quilting as a form of prayer, botanical dyeing, and facilitating story and grief circles in community. Bridgette’s practice is how she listens back to time, her body, and the many others here with her. Bridgette’s work explores fragmentation as map making. She is influenced by her Black, Irish, and Nipmuc ancestral technologies, and a devotion to orienting her attention towards lifeways that protect life belonging by intimately honoring the dead and fragmented. Currently Bridgette is working on the second iteration of Beloved Fragments, now Seed to Quilt a project centered in love and care work between her and Black queers/autists/mad women/dreamers/artists/elders.
