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X-ORIGINAL-URL:https://houstonfreedmenstown.org
X-WR-CALDESC:Events for Houston Freedmens Town
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DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20250906
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20260109
DTSTAMP:20260427T111218
CREATED:20250808T165625Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251030T152206Z
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SUMMARY:Where We Find Ourselves
DESCRIPTION:About\n\n\nWhere We Find Ourselves is a multi-disciplinary investigation into memory\, place\, and Black perception across generations\, centering the historic neighborhood of Freedmen’s Town in Houston. Through photography\, film\, architectural modeling\, and installation\, artist Satchel Lee brings a forensic intimacy to the project\, placing the South\, and specifically Freedmen’s Town\, under a microscope. Lee reveals the physical remnants of a once self-sustaining Black community founded by formerly enslaved people and the brilliance embedded in its spatial and spiritual architecture. \nThe exhibition navigates the tension between monument and ruin\, presence and erasure. By constructing miniature models of historically significant structures and re-photographing them at large scale\, Lee shifts perception\, shrinking the past to examine it closely\, then magnifying it to command reverence. These gestures act as reclamation\, re-centering Black stories and spaces that urban renewal and gentrification have obscured. The models operate as vessels for multigenerational memory and questions of ownership\, belonging\, and cultural survival. \nThrough documentary films\, longtime residents Bobby Johnson\, Pastor Samuel Smith\, and Dr. Sally Wickers share lived experiences of the neighborhood. Their testimonies counter the visual archive\, grounding the work in Black reality. \nInstalled in a restored Freedmen’s Town row house\, the exhibition culminates in an immersive space reflecting domestic familiarity and sacred ritual\, inviting visitors to perceive the neighborhood’s history and present anew. \n\nOrganizers\n\n\nWhere We Find Ourselves is co-organized by Houston Freedmen’s Town Conservancy (HFTC) and Contemporary Arts Museum Houston (CAMH) as part of the Rebirth in Action project. The exhibition is curated by Mich Stevenson\, Project Manager—Partnerships. \n\nAbout Satchel Lee \nSatchel Lee (b.1994\, New York\, NY) is a visual artist and filmmaker whose work explores memory\, legacy\, and Black interior life through photography film and installation. She reinterprets personal and collective histories through the architecture of memory\, using built spaces to reveal deeper layers of identity and heritage. Lee had an MFA from School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a BFA from NYU Tisch School of the Arts. Having exhibited her work both domestically and internationally and collaborated with Washington Post Magazine\, Vogue Italia\, and The New York Times. Where We Find Ourselves marks the artist’s first solo exhibition.
URL:https://houstonfreedmenstown.org/events/where-we-find-ourselves/
LOCATION:Freedmen’s Town Visitor Center\, 1204 Victor St\, Houston\, Texas\, 77019\, United States
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DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20251121
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20251122
DTSTAMP:20260427T111218
CREATED:20251030T152124Z
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SUMMARY:If These Houses Could Sing
DESCRIPTION:Houston Freedmen’s Town Conservancy (HFTC) and Contemporary Arts Museum Houston (CAMH) present the virtual release of the program\, If These Houses Could Sing\, a response to Where We Find Ourselves\, the solo exhibition by Satchel Lee at the Row House Galleries in Freedmen’s Town. The program convened sound artist Mo Nikole of blkwomanmusiq and curator Amarie Gipson of The Reading Room to expand the exhibition’s meditation on memory\, place\, and Black cultural survival through the perspectives of Black women. \nMo introduces If These Houses Could Sing\, a listening altar anchored in the sonic memory of Freedmen’s Town. The work combines archival recordings\, speeches\, and music by Black women to create a sacred environment where sound carries remembrance\, resistance\, grief\, and joy across generations. Amarie contributes This House is Mine\, a meditative essay that extends the themes of the exhibition and reflects on how literature and history safeguard collective memory. \nTogether they shape a collective experience of sound and text\, where listening and reading become practices of remembrance and reclamation. Their dialogue resonates with Satchel Lee’s artistic approach of reconstructing Freedmen’s Town through film\, photography\, and architectural models. The program affirms that the archive\, whether carried in sound story or text\, remains a vessel for care\, belonging and cultural continuity. \nThis activation will be made available to the public through Satchel Lee’s online platform as well as HFTC and CAMH’s YouTube channel. A link will be sent out to those who RSVP via Eventbrite. The virtual program will allow audiences in Houston and beyond to encounter Houston’s Freedmen’s Town as a living space where Black memory continues to guide the present and future.
URL:https://houstonfreedmenstown.org/events/if-these-houses-could-sing/
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