NTP Project Residency
Nat Turner Project (NTP) functions as a radical space seeking to fill a void in Portland, Oregon, one of the least diverse metropolitan cities in America. NTP allows artists of color to go beyond the usual expositions inherent in presenting the art of marginalized perspectives to a dominant culture; allowing them the freedom to create or express their own language within and without the parameters of racial commodification or designation. NTP creates an environment of inclusivity –– a communal harbor for artists previously silenced by institutional constraints –– and actively provides them spatial priority.
Nat Turner Project is made up of Melanie Stevens and maximiliano. Melanie has a background in Political Science, drawing, and sequential art. maximiliano does performance, installation, and poetry. They each bring a variety of skill sets to the project, ranging from curatorial and organizational experience to social practice and public relations.
PAST PUBLIC PROGRAMS
JUNE SHOW
June 14 - July 1, 2017
Nat Turner Project, in conjunction with c3:Initiative, proudly presents June Show, an exhibition featuring artists Sharyll Burroughs and Jaleesa Johnston.
Sharyll Burroughs confronts the absurdity of racial propaganda by utilizing scale and creating opportunities via public performances for intimate and communal conversations about the multiplicity of experiences regarding race and identity. Jaleesa Johnston confronts the violence and trauma of stereotypes via a re-staging of physical and metaphorical markings, as well as through performances that represent psychological, historical, and political disruptions of the Black body.
Burroughs and Johnston pull from their individual Black experiences and respectively from antebellum tropes which are deeply entrenched in our collective psyche; and from an AfroFuturist aesthetic response which builds new realities and narratives. Both artists use their bodies in direct conversations of race; both provocative yet approachable to reveal a more complex, undefined reality.
ARTIST TALK | Artist Sharyll Burroughs participated in an artist talk July 1, 6 - 7:30 pm at c3:initiative.
JUNETEETH BBQ
June 17, 4pm
Nat Turner Project and c3:initiative invite you to JUNETEETH, an artist-produced BBQ on the occasion of African American independence.
The evening includes music by Zed Kenzo and Ados 33, poetry by Olivia Olivia, and a performance by visual artist Sharyll Burroughs. Sharyll Burroughs The N-Word Sessions: Subverting Banalities took place at 5:30 pm.
BBQ was provided by St. John's Dub's BBQ, free of charge. (Quantities are limited**)
JULY SHOW
July 15 - August 5, 2017
Nat Turner Project proudly presents July Show, an exhibition featuring artists Renée Lopez aka Miss Lopez Media and Ricardo (Hiro) Nagaoka.
Miss Lopez Media centers both the individual and community roles of Black and Brown women throughout Portland, Oregon. She utilizes her lens to facilitate experiences which celebrate and give prominence to the unity, self-love, agency, and the natural beauty of women of color.
Ricardo Nagaoka navigates the multiplicities of home, as well as the arbitrary delineations of place. His work examines the movement of people through spaces, while searching for methodologies and means of subverting borders, both internal and external.
Miss Lopez Media and Nagaoka employ photography as a medium for intercepting interior spaces of representation, shedding light on a nuanced range of possibilities and narratives. Both artists apply their unique perspectives to their explorations of the often subtle but powerful connection between environment and humanity, all the while questioning the local, regional, and global implications of this tension.
ARTIST TALK | Renée Lopez gave an artist talk August 5, 6pm at c3:initiative.