A Clearing: Word, Image, Body

A Clearing: Word, Image, Body

Tatyana Atkinson, Marcus Morris, Euzhan Shabazz, Benjamin Smith, and solo

Opening Reception: Thursday, September 10th, 2026 5:30 PM – 8 PM

Show Run: September 10th – October 30th, 2026

3907 Perkins Ave., Cleveland OH 44114

The exhibition opening is jointly presented by Zygote Press and Literary Cleveland, and serves as the welcoming reception for writers attending the annual Inkubator Writing Conference. The 2026 theme of the conference, “Freedom is community,” stems from Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad and amplifies some of Toni Morrison’s own thoughts about power, autonomy, and liberation–all themes found throughout the artworks on display.

This exhibition is a response to the wide-ranging impact of Lorain, Ohio native Toni Morrison. Nearly one hundred years since her birth, how are Ohio contemporary artists giving visual expression to the themes Morrison investigated? Through a range of media spanning photography, digital collage and illustration, printmaking, sound, installation, and social practice, these five multidisciplinary artists build on Morrison’s legacy, their practices variously making room for what has been obscured, constrained, or denied. Collectively, their works explore identity, memory, and ancestry; Black selfhood and autonomy; liberation from societal norms and values; beauty; sexual violence and trauma; and Black communal life, love, and joy as forms of authorship and world-making. One particular aim of this presentation is to illustrate how visual artists translate Morrison’s modes of storytelling and literary effects into visual and material terms that enrich the characters and meanings found in her oeuvre.

Taking its inspiration from the notion of a clearing—a space for the practice of liberation—as depicted in the novel Beloved (1987), the exhibition invites visitors to think expansively about how art might perform a similar function. Morrison’s clearing is not entirely removed from the conditions that surround it, but one made within them: a space in which other ways of being, relating, and imagining become possible. As such, what happens when we apply this idea to the physical substrates and mental spaces of artmaking? In this group exhibition, photographic parcels of land, printerly plots of real estate, installation grounds, and sonic landscapes offer alternative realities that transport readers, viewers, and listeners to spaces of inclusivity, love, and liberation. It is through inhabiting such spaces—however provisional—that different possibilities for selfhood, relation, and collective life can be practiced.

Co-curated by Anthony Huffman and Scout Bach, this exhibition forms part of the cultural programming for Ohio Celebrates Toni Morrison, a yearlong celebration organized by Ohio Humanities and Literary Cleveland. The show will run from September 10 through October 30, and include a variety of public programs, which will be announced in the coming weeks.

Due to the anticipation surrounding the coinciding events: the Literary Cleveland Inkubator and the exhibition opening reception. RSVP’ing through Eventbrite is required to attend the opening. RSVP Here!