LISANBY MUSEUM

Worlds Within and Without: An Exhibition of Contemporary Black Art

Fall 2024

The Lisanby Museum and the Furious Flower Poetry Center present artwork from the Art Bridges Foundation in an exhibition celebrating the work of contemporary Black artists. This collaborative exhibition is designed to complement the 2024 Furious Flower Conference, held at its traditional home at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia on September 18-21, 2024. The decennial event is intergenerational, international, and intentional in its focus on the expansiveness of the Black poetic tradition. As the nation's first academic center for Black poetry, Furious Flower has facilitated programming on the local, regional, and national levels.  

Within World and Without invites visitors and conference attendees alike to discover artistic responses to unique narratives as well as the universal truths that unite humanity.

DUKE HALL GALLERY OF FINE ART ​

MINIA BIABIANY

Fall 2024

Minia Biabiany’s solo exhibition explores links between Virginia, where a toxic chemical chlordecone (also known as kepone) was produced in the 1960s and places where it was exported for use as an insecticide- including Biabiany’s home island, Guadeloupe. Chlordecone is both carcinogenic as well as an endocrine disruptor and its pervasive contamination of soil and water has resulted in Guadeloupean population developing a predominance of nervous and reproductive system diseases, including the highest rate of prostate cancer in the world. Working with collaborators in Hopewell, Virginia – a small town to the east of Richmond known as “The Chemical Capital of the South,” Biabiany questions this town’s relation to Guadeloupe, engaging those harmed by this toxity, community and environmental activists, and those impacted by continuing legacies of slavery, colonial exploitation, and environmental racism.

THE NEVERENDING THREAD: NEW DIRECTIONS IN EMBROIDERY

Fall 2024

This survey of embroidery-based art showcases the expansive possibilities of this historical medium, including pictorial and painterly approaches to embroidery as well as sculpture and wearable art. Featuring US and international artists, The Neverending Thread challenges barriers between notions of craft, design, and art, inviting viewers to consider new forms created from experimentation and new technologies. Featured artists include Severine Gallardo, MiKyoung Lee, Michelle Kingdom, Allyson Mellberg Taylor, Robert Mertens, Kristen Miller, Mark Newport, Sean Prentice, Allison Sommers, and Catherine Stack.

INDIRA ALLEGRA

Spring 2025

A conceptual artist engaged in performative craft, Indira Allegra takes weaving off the loom and uses it as a framework for performance and installation projects. Responding to the history and geography of the Shenandoah Valley, Allegra creates an experimental loom which will be played like an amplified instrument. This exhibition embraces the traditions of weaving while exploring new artistic processes and engaging local traditions such as Appalachian shape note singing, local histories of racial oppression, and processes of historical memorialization. 

M.F.A. THESIS EXHIBITION

Spring 2025

This thesis exhibition features the culminating experiences of JMU’s School of Art, Design and Art History Master of Fine Arts program students.