Juneteenth Celebration At the Branch
by Charles McGuigan 06.2025
The Branch celebrated America’s other Independence Day, not with flag-waving and pyrotechnics, but with art and music, joy and truth-telling.
Upon entering the courtyard hundreds of visitors attending the Juneteenth event encountered Umama, and so she sows, a massive three-dimensional work of public art that honors Black women from Richmond and Capetown, cities united by their histories of enslavement and segregation, but also by their legacies of liberation and resistance.
Part of ART 180’s Atlas Artist Residency, led by Nastassja Swift and Xolani Sivunda, this monumental work, crafted of discarded and donated materials, originally stood at the corner of Leigh and St. Peters Streets in the heart of Jackson Ward. More than a dozen folks worked alongside Nastassja and Xolani to create this powerful monument.
Upstairs, inside the Branch, there were two separate art exhibits, along with a live DJ, a pop-up print shop featuring artwork by local creatives, and an open bar with light snacks.
(re)Framing Protest (Now), a photographic exhibit in the Main Gallery, will take you back, in living color, to 2020 and the BLM protests, leading up to the removal of the monuments to dead confederates that were erected at the height of the Jim Crow era to essentially let Black people know that despite a Civil War and an Emancipation Proclamation they were still, at best, second-class citizens. Richmond Free Press photojournalists Regina H. Boone and Sandra Sellars shot these poignant and artistic photographs during that memorable summer. They capture the essence of what was going, and each picture is easily worth a thousand words and more.
In the Long Gallery, Echoes of Us, curated by Kasidi Jordan, is an expansive group exhibition featuring the work of more than fifteen Black artists from Virginia, including Amuri Morris, Paige Perkins, Kelly Johnson, Aminah McKenzie, Cameron Weston, Jowarnise Caston, Dallas Roquemore, S. Ross Browne, SillyGenius, Mamadou Barry, Jadea Knight, Christian Chambers, Unicia R. Buster, and Curtis Newkirk Jr.
Working in various media, each artist, in a singular voice, describes Black identity. It is more important now than ever before to listen closely to these visual monologues that express the Black experience in America, and, by so doing, to learn the real truth, and not its whitewashed version.
Both exhibits will be on display through July 12.
Among those present at this Juneteenth celebration was State Senator Ghazala Hashmi, the Democratic candidate for this year’s lieutenant-governor’s race.
The Branch Museum of Design
2501 Monument Avenue
Richmond, VA 23220