Hammonds House Museum Announces 2022 Season: PURSUIT

Hammonds House Museum’s 2022 season is anchored in the idea of Pursuit. Defined as “the action of following or pursuing someone or something,” pursuit takes shape and manifests in different ways. Each of this year’s three exhibitions will explore and reflect upon this idea. Hammonds House Museum will reopen on Friday, April 29, 2022, from 6-8:30 pm and admission will be free. The museum’s hours moving forward will be Thursday through Saturday from 11 am to 5 pm and on Sunday from Noon to 5 pm. Admission is by online registration only. To reserve your tickets, go to hammondshouse.org.

No Justice, No Peace: Protest Photography from 1967 – 2022 opens this year’s season and will be on view in the museum’s downstairs galleries from April 29-June 26, illustrating Black America’s ongoing pursuit of justice, freedom, and equality. No Justice, No Peace provides a visual framing of the importance of protests to the movement work that has emerged over the decades and ushered in a change of national attitudes, public policy, and new opportunities. Featured photographers are Jim Alexander, Dr. Doris Derby, Lashley John, Jena P. Jones, Bud Smith, shelia turner, Lynsey Weatherspoon, and Julie Yarbrough.

In Protest: Grassroots Stories from the Front Lines is a virtual reality film series that will be presented in the upstairs gallery in partnership with GRX Immersive, with support from Oculus. The 360° film series chronicles unsung heroes of the Black Lives Matter movement. The project honors lives lost while calling for renewed solidarity against racial injustice in America. Each of the four installments of In Protest focuses on a different city, starting with Minneapolis and continuing to Washington, DC, Los Angeles, and Atlanta. The three Atlanta episodes feature Killer Mike, Ayanna Gregory, and James Tiago Bertrand.

“As a Black Creative Technologist, it’s extremely important to bring the conversation of Black Lives Matter into the immersive space, told by Black people from a place of pride, strength and love,” says In Protest producer Adam Davis-McGee. “The voices in this piece represent a continuation of our oral tradition, and VR allows us to pass along our witnessing through an unfiltered media and safe space.”

Mid-season the colorful and vibrant large scale works of Joe Barry Carroll’s My View From Seven Feet will grace the walls of the museum from July 15-September 18. Carroll’s visual recollections and narratives of his early years growing up in Pine Bluff, Arkansas illustrate a different pursuit – the pursuit of freely living according to one’s own agency. What does life unencumbered by external interruptions look and feel like?  Visitors will walk through Carroll’s memory of the people, places, and things of his youth, as well as delve into the imagery he found beautiful or intriguing in later years.

The season closes with the Hammonds House Museum commissioned work, Dans l’espoir d’un Avenir Meilleur (In Hope for a Better Future) by Tracy Murrell which will be on view from October 15-December 18.  An exploration of contemporary Haitian transmigration from the female perspective, Murrell offers a counter-narrative to the (im)migration story and brings to light the universality of migration as a shared experience. The act of leaving everything behind to build a better present and better future is the quintessential pursuit of agency embraced throughout the African Diaspora. This work was commissioned by Hammonds House Museum with the support of the National Performance Network. Further development is provided through Brown University’s Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America (CSREA) Practitioner’s Fellowship awarded to Murrell in 2021.

Hammonds House Museum is generously supported by Fulton County Board of Commissioners through the Fulton County Department of Arts and Culture, Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta, City of Atlanta – Mayor’s Office of Cultural Affairs, NPN: National Performance Network, and Dihvinely Konnecked Productions, as well as donors and members.

COVID Protocol Policy: – Wearing a mask is required upon entering the museum. Use of hand sanitizer and social distancing are strongly recommended.

Hammonds House Museum is a 501(c)3 arts organization whose mission is to celebrate and share the cultural diversity and important legacy of artists of African descent. The former residence of the late Dr. Otis Thrash Hammonds, a prominent Atlanta physician and passionate arts patron, the museum is in a beautiful Victorian home at 503 Peeples Street SW, Atlanta, GA 30310. 

Hammonds House Museum’s 2022 exhibitions are supported by a series of artist-led workshops, public programs and civic engagement activities which serve as companions to the works and opportunities for the community to have a deeper experience with the art. For updates and information about events throughout the season, and to plan your visit, go to their website: hammondshouse.org.