Re-membering Community

Cleveland has long been regarded as a place of confluence — for waters, for peoples, for cultures. A meeting space built by movement: of Lake Erie giving way to the Cuyahoga; of Black families fleeing the Jim Crow South during the Great Migration, carrying with them the burden of memory and the hope of possibility; of Eastern European and Latino communities arriving in pursuit of industrial promise. The city has and continues to serve as a nexus of cultural exchange and a testament to the power of collective resilience. 

Re-membering Community seeks to bring this diverse tapestry into focus. The title itself is deliberate. To “re-member” is not merely to recall. It is to reassemble, to reconstitute, to gather what has been fractured by policy or displacement or neglect, and to piece it together with care. It is a gesture towards healing, not by erasing the past, but by confronting it, honoring it, and building something new from the rubble. The exhibition features the work of six Ohio-born or -based artists, many of whom maintain active studio practices in Cleveland: Woodrow Nash, Amanda D. King, Antwoine Washington, Oliver Frontini, Ryan Harris, and Rhonda K. Brown. Their practices both reflect the city’s layered histories and actively and intentionally reshape them. Their work speaks to reconciliation, yes, but also to reclamation. 

Nash reclaims diasporic memory through sculptural forms that evoke both ancestral presence and futuristic imagining. King uses visual storytelling as a tool for justice, exploring themes of loss and grief. Washington paints Black familial life with radical tenderness, refusing spectacle in favor of intimacy and dignity. Frontini weaves archival material and personal history into layered compositions that explore displacement, belonging, and placemaking. Harris documents community life through photography that honors lineage and the quiet power of presence. Brown creates paintings that cement the Black form in positions of nobility. 

Indeed, Re-membering Community is an exercise in “cultural equity”: the ongoing work of creating space where different voices are not simply included but valued. It is this ethic that undergirds the exhibition and promulgates the belief that art should reflect the full spectrum of a community’s truth and that artists are more than simply custodians of culture — they are architects of it. Re-membering Community insists that Cleveland’s creative voices are central to how we understand who we are. 

In this vein, Re-membering Community serves as both an exhibition and an offering. It affirms that community is not static or fixed; it is something that evolves and breathes. It is among our most enduring human practices — a profound means of enacting care and cultivating belonging. At its core, this exhibit invites us not only to reflect on who we are, but to consider who we hope to become. 

Re-membering Community is generously sponsored by JoAnn and Robert Glick. 

— Toussaint J. Miller is a Cleveland-born performer-composer, science researcher, and curator exploring the intersection of art and medicine to bridge scientific inquiry and representational justice. A graduate of Harvard University, he has a double concentration in neuroscience and music, investigating how the arts can inform healing and healthcare.