PAST EXHIBITIONS
Nicholson’s first level is comprised of three gallery rooms that feature both our permanent collection and a series of rotating exhibitions by our resident artists as well as other curated exhibitions. Visiting hours and information can be found here.
monica jahan bose
NOURISH: STORYTELLING WITH SARIS
September 10, 2023 - November 4, 2023
This exhibition is an installation of video, drawings, poems, and saris inspired by plants and herbs. Touching the soil and growing food are grounding and nourishing. For the last two years, Bangladeshi-American artist Monica Jahan Bose and DC participants in her Storytelling with Saris project have been connecting with the soil and Earth and food justice issues by nurturing plants on windowsills and planting neighborhood vegetable gardens. This year they planted and harvested in the garden at The Nicholson Project. Bose led a series of planting workshops that included poetry and art inspired by soil and plants. Using performance, sari art, writing, and film, Storytelling with Saris, which commenced in 2012, links DC residents with Bangladeshi coastal women farmers in solidarity to address climate and food injustice.
Stephanie j. williams
THE PLEASURE OF WASTED TIME
September 10, 2023 - November 4, 2023
“Animating stop-motion puppets is perhaps the most inefficient way to make my work. It demands my slowness,” says Williams. The Pleasure of Wasted Time reflects on this slowness and the importance of the care that comes with creating stop-motion films. The exhibition features a series of Williams’ stop motion short films along with an installation of the hand-built puppets, sculptures, and set pieces used in the creation of these films.
ZACHARY FABRI
MOURNING STUTTER
May 6, 2023 - August 12, 2023
Informed by the successive murders of Black people by police officers in public space, in Mourning Stutter, Zachary Fabri explores the ways in which trauma is stored in the body—how it is remembered or forgotten. Through video, photographs, sound, text, and sculpture, he reclaims the freedom to access and hold public space without fear, but also asserts the necessity to imagine, build, and experience joy freely in the public sphere.
PHYLICIA GHEE
LIMINALITY: A STORY OF REMEMBRANCE
November 6, 2022 - January 28, 2023
Liminality: A Story of Remembrance is an ode to the self-taught herbalists, midwives, and root women whose stories are shrouded in the mysteries of Ghee’s personal family history and the history of this country. Incorporating sound, texture, and an apothecary cabinet that “feels like walking into the living space of a Grandmother, Great Aunt, or family matriarch,” Ghee transformed The Nicholson Project’s gallery into a sacred place, where herbs are hanging and herbal remedies are cultivated, where recipes are handwritten on napkins and torn pieces of paper and found objects are woven together with story.
KOKAYI
BLACKNESS AND THE INFINITE POTENTIAL WELL
April 21 - June 18, 2022
Exhausted and frustrated by the ever-present images of black death and trauma, multimedia artist and musician Kokayi offers a new way of seeing and being seen. Blackness and the Infinite Potential Well brings together sculpture, film, sound, and digital collage to create an immersive experience of varied and nuanced Black critique, joy, and resilience.
hoesy coronA
WAYFARING
January 20 - March 12, 2022
In WAYFARING, Hoesy Corona considers the artificiality of man-made borders and the need to reconsider how we relate to the earth in the face of manmade natural disasters. Large-scale prints on fabric and a series of mixed media sculptures invite the audience to play the role of voyeur to unidentified people as they struggle and make their way over, across, and through desolate and imagined environments, and cross paths with a fictitious group of otherworldly humans who see themselves as stewards of the earth.
MELANI DOUGLASS
1000 WORDS
September 29 - November 1, 2021
In collaboration with Melani Douglass from the Family Arts Museum, 1,000 Words was a collaborative project which aimed to create portraits of community wisdom and expertise about the art of home and garden. This project celebrated wisdom as fine art while documenting the expertise of the everyday. The 1,000 Words exhibition was comprised of video interviews, photographs, and wisdom sharing with Geo Edwards, herbalist and Nicholson's 2021 Farmer-in-Residence, Dr. Martina Washington, founder of New Life Wellness Center, and Samaria King and Malka Roth, founders of DC Mutual Aid Apothecary.
A.J. MCCLENAN
NOTES FROM VEGA
April 10 - April 25 2021
In Notes from VEGA, McClenon invites the audience to take a glimpse at the resilience of Black people and their ability to adapt and evolve in any circumstance. When the earth is no longer able to sustain their livelihoods and options are limited, they return to water—the source of life.
DOMINIC GREEN
PERCEPTION X AGENCY
March 7 - April 18, 2020
Who is a hero and who is a villain? Dominic Green’s portrait series challenges historical imagery of black and brown bodies as villains, calling forth new mythology missing from literature and culture.
AMBER ROBLES-GORDON
OF FERTILE GROUNDS: MINDS, WOMBS AND THE EARTH
September 14 - October 2019
In this altar installation, Robles-Gordon represents how plastics and other non-recyclable man-made materials have a deleterious physical, emotional and ecological impact on the health of women and of our planet.
LARRY COOK, BEVERLY PRICE, and VINCENT RUTHERFORD BROWN
Goosin’ DC
September 14 - October 2019
Goosin’ is in the act of looking at someone or something with admiration. This series of photographs celebrates the people and places that make a community. Curated by Dashboard