Inside Amherst College’s Mead Art Museum, a photograph of Rick James shows the singer at a concert decades ago, holding out his microphone and inviting his audience to sing with him.
In the present day, the image takes on a new meaning. Located outside of the college’s Black Art Matters Festival, James’s gesture suggests he’s not only amplifying the voices of the Black Amherst students whose work is on view, but guiding visitors in to see their art.
The ninth annual Black Art Matters Festival, which celebrates art created by Black Amherst College students, is an exhibition that runs through Sunday, May 3. The festival also includes a performance showcase that took place earlier this month.
The festival began not in a museum, but in a dorm. Amherst alumna Zoe Akoto started Black Art Matters (BAM) in 2018 because she noticed a lack of artwork by Black creators on the Amherst campus, so she hosted a show of work in her dorm room. Over the years, however, the festival grew and got support from various offices and organizations on campus. Akoto graduated in 2021, but a committee of students now continues her work.
Amherst seniors Rachel De La Cruz and Moira Newman both serve on the BAM planning committee and have work featured in the exhibition.
“I think museums have a responsibility to uplift histories and make visible what has historically been invisible, and, I think, especially in a place like Amherst,” said De La Cruz, noting the importance of discussing difficult topics on colonized land.
Newman added that the experience provides professional validation. “Being able to be a student and say that I’ve had my art in a museum … gives a lot of legitimacy and also economic credence,” she said. “Then you’re able to have that confidence to potentially … submit your art [to] other galleries.”
This year’s BAM Festival features works by 11 students at Amherst College and one at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. As both planning committee members and exhibiting artists, De La Cruz and Newman noted that their role isn’t that of traditional curators. Instead of selecting specific pieces — since every submission is displayed — they focus on generating interest, encouraging participation and ensuring each work is presented in alignment with the creator’s vision.
“We want the festival very much to be about inclusion and community and making sure that everybody feels seen and represented,” De La Cruz said.
The largest work in the show is Edwina Polanco’s “Yemayá,” which depicts an anchor decorated by various symbols — including a chain, cowrie shells and fish — atop crashing ocean waves, representing the impact of colonialism and the Atlantic slave trade on the Afro-Latinx diaspora.
To the right of Polanco’s work, Jasmynh Stokes’s painting, “She, who knows (It All),” depicts a Black woman against a vivid green backdrop, her gold earrings reflecting the light of a matching golden eye. According to the gallery text, Stokes intended the work to be “a reflection of how I see all the Black women in my life. Wise, vibrant, and transcendental.” Facing the portrait is a series of beadwork pieces by Oda Benitha Mahirwe, designed to help those experiencing body dysmorphia cultivate a deeper sense of connection to their physical selves.
De La Cruz’s piece was inspired by growing up in New Jersey with her younger brother; Newman’s piece is a cyanotype dyed cloth on cotton, with imprints created by a variety of dried flowers she collected in Washington, D.C. Other pieces in the show include paintings, photos, and even an audio work.
“All the pieces are so interesting, and we never know what we’re going to get,” De La Cruz said.
By a lucky coincidence of timing, the BAM show is situated within an exhibit by the late Black photographer Kwame Brathwaite, who documented the Black diaspora for decades and captured the aforementioned photo of Rick James. He photographed celebrities like Chaka Khan, James Brown, Miles Davis, Bob Marley and Grace Jones, among others, as well as everyday people at clubs, on playgrounds and in cities.
On the other side of the entrance into BAM is a collection of photos Brathwaite took at the famous 1974 “Rumble in the Jungle” heavyweight fight between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman, which Ali won. Above the photos is one of his quotes: “I am America. I am the part you don’t recognize. But get used to me.”
“Having that be the wall that leads into [BAM], it’s, I think, a really wonderful conversation of the past and the future and the present,” Newman said. “And our art is still here. It’s still important. It still matters. It’s changing and unchanging and all of these very fun and interesting ways.”
Student work on display includes pieces by George Henry, Jada Grant, Jasmynh Stokes, Karma Griggs, Moira Newman, Oda Mahirwe, Rachel De La Cruz, Samuel Nkengla, Skyla Monroe, Sydney Williams and Wasifa Orthy, all of Amherst College, and Edwina Polanco of the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Other students who are part of the festival include Amazing Sibanda-Uwakata, Imani Collins, Jadyn Newby, Knowledge Marikiti, Maigan Lafontant, Sukanya Richards, Teni Aina, Uchenna Monplaisir and Willow Delp.
Admission to the museum is free and open to the public. The Mead is open Tuesday through Sunday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., and open until 10 p.m. on Thursdays during the Amherst College school year.
For more information about BAM, visit amherst.edu/museums/mead/events/BAM-Fest.