A mother’s ring, a family’s portrait, both of which are revered objects passed down from generation to generation - heirlooms. Expanding upon the former considerations, Heirlooms: The Black South Collection asserts iconography and images as generational wealth. Artists Amiri Gueka Farris and Kela Portee use culturally-rich references to their lived experiences as African Americans in the South. For Farris, the Gullah culture rooted in West-African tradition and permeating the Sea Islands of South Carolina serves as a catalog of unique imagery to which his paintings draw. In conversation, are the works of Portee alongside the Avery Research Center’s collection. Through Portee’s contemporary lens, we are able to see both correspondence and discrepancy when viewing her work in conjunction with the surrounding candids. In both parallel and juxtaposition of one another, the works of this collection speaks to the diasporic movement across time, one to be remembered, made reverent and reconsidered within the Black South.

Arts in Healing has received a Growth Grant from South Carolina Humanities, www.schumanities.org. Funding for the Growth Grants has been provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) as part of the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021.