This Juneteenth, we move beyond the purely celebratory to engage with the aesthetic and intellectual foundations of Black liberation, hosting a curated matinee featuring Nichole Hill, the creator of the Our Ancestors Were Messy podcast, guest Tressie McMillan Cottom, Kymberly S. Newberry, Visiting Assistant Professor of Art History, University of Richmond, and a live activation of archival documents through a choral performance held within Abigail DeVille’s solo exhibition, Deo Vindice (Orion’s Cabinet). Through history, live storytelling, and immersive gallery experiences, we explore how Black history is not just remembered but lived.

About the presenters:

Nichole Hill is an award-winning audio showrunner and creator of the podcasts The Secret Adventures of Black People and Our Ancestors Were Messy, a 2024 Official Tribeca Audio Selection. Her most recent work includes showrunning for the podcasts I Am America with Tracee Ellis Ross, She Has a Name with Tonya Mosley, and Apathy Is Not An Option presented by The Southern Poverty Law Center and PRX. Back in the day she worked as Associate Producer (and occasional voice actor) for the audio fiction podcast The Truth with Radiotopia. Her work has appeared on podcasts for Audible, NPR, PRX, Snap Judgement, and New York Magazine.

Kymberly S. Newberry is an art historian and curator whose research centers contemporary African art as a site of disruption, examining the curatorial and institutional challenges of stewarding, interpreting, and displaying African art in Western museums. Her scholarship engages decolonial theory and confronts the legacies of colonial curatorial practices, foregrounding questions of representation, labor, and power in museum spaces.Newberry holds a Ph.D. and M.A. in African American Studies from the W.E.B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and a B.A. in International Relations from Mount Holyoke College. She previously served as Visiting Instructor in Art History and Architectural Studies and Assistant Curator of Special Projects at Mount Holyoke College and Mount Holyoke College Art Museum.

Tressie McMillan Cottom is a professor with the Center for Information, Technology and Public Life at UNC-Chapel Hill, a New York Times columnist, and 2020 MacArthur Fellow.

Dr. Chioke I’Anson is a philosopher, podcaster and founding Director of Community Media at the VPM+ICA Community Media Center at the Institute for Contemporary Art at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU). Since 2016, he has been NPR’s national underwriting voice for digital downloads and newscasts, placing his voice among the most heard voices of NPR. I’Anson taught Africana philosophy as Assistant Professor of African American Studies, and podcasting as Assistant Professor of Media Production. His current work revolves around public media pedagogy. He is the founder of Levels Up Academy, a summer intensive for young adults that teaches podcast skills, and RESONATE Podcast Festival, an annual gathering of producers and beginners that focuses on community and the craft of storytelling.