Join us for the opening of Zeelie Brown: Queer Mothers’ Space, the first solo presentation of work in New York by Alabama raised and NYC-based artist Zeelie Brown. The opening will feature a reading by poet Dre Cardinal.

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The exhibition is accompanied by an original zine publication by the artist featuring a commissioned essay by Katherine Adams and poetry by Dre Cardinal. Framed as a conversation between Brown and figures both living and historic, the solo project will include performances by Brown and guests, a public dinner, talks, and a gallery-spanning installation of lush inter-media, tactile, and sonic works that confront the intersectional realities of climate injustice, oppression, and anti-Blackness in contemporary American society. Brown focuses on the potential for transformative and restorative justice through acts of resistance and care, as a means to “(re)form the world.” Brown refuses polite forms of permission-seeking to exist and to be visible, or as Brown writes in their artist statement, “You’ll forgive me if I want to destroy things…” 

This work was made possible, in part, by the Franklin Furnace Fund supported by Jerome Foundation and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.

PARTICIPANT BIOS

Zeelie Brown’s first art museum was the pine woods in Alabama. They make Black&queer wilderness refuges called "soulscapes" to (re)imagine what nature might be. Zeelie is currently working with the MIT Department of Architecture, NOMAS, and Group Project to create sustainable human waste solutions in her native rural Alabama. Queer Mother's Space is their first Manhattan solo show.

Dre Cardinal is a half-Korean, quarter French-Canadian, quarter German published poet who has won numerous awards, most notably the highly competitive creative thesis mentorship under her favorite poet Josh Bell while (not) studying at Harvard College. A Gemini military brat who moved around the South, she mostly grew up in San Antonio where Zeelie was her next door neighbor. Dre has also lived in Germany, South Korea and Madagascar. She is the last of a long line of first-born surviving females. Her life’s purpose is to clear heart chakras through her writing -- and bring love. She’s known Zeelie for 31 years.

Zeelie Brown, But, I Can Pray, 2010/2021, Oberlin, OH. Courtesy of the Artist.