Excerpt from Dayton.com
The National Afro-American Museum & Cultural Center will reopen Saturday, May 15, with a new exhibition. “Rhythm of Revolution” maps the visual flow of artistic, cultural, social, and political change in America from 1619 to the present day.
Objects from the museum’s collection “tell the story of how African American and Black artists responded to contemporary challenges in our society and also how they shaped our culture going into the future,” Hadley Drodge, a curator at the museum, said.
A map of Africa from the 1700s the way it was envisioned by European colonists is part of the display as is a wedding dress made for Remithy Ward Hatcher, a Cincinnati woman who had been enslaved in the south.
Artwork is an important aspect of the exhibition because “artists are the movers and shapers of our culture,” Drodge said.
Paintings and photography, including an early photograph of a woman and child using the “crayon enlargement” technique, is among the artifacts on display.
This exhibit was created by the NAAMCC curators Rosa Rojas, Hadley Drodge and Derek Pridemore, who worked with Wright State University graduate students in public history. The students did the research, selected the collections objects and assisted with developing the exhibition.
