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Jan 24-Jun 1, 2025 Harminder Judge Bootstrap Paradox Jan 24-Jun 1, 2025 Harminder Judge, Untitled (crept upon leg) (detail) 2024. Plaster, polymer, pigment, scrim, oil, 203 x 198 x 4 cm. Photo: Blythe Thea Williams Harminder Judge’s first museum exhibition in the U.S. presented at moCa Cleveland, opening January 24, explores themes of alchemy, spiritual processions, and the body’s transformation through death. Judge’s vibrant plaster and pigment works emerge from energetic lines and intuitive processes, where color is embedded into the material, merging sculpture and painting. Influenced by funeral rites and ceremonial burning, his large, dynamic pieces provide a space for powerful emotional responses while exploring the embodied connection between the physical and the spiritual. The exhibition invites viewers to engage with the power of form, color, and abstraction, prompting personal reflection and connection. Major support provided by The Sunday Painter. Generous support provided by Yuval Brisker. Installation Images Harminder Judge, Bootstrap Paradox. Installation views at moCa Cleveland, 2025. Photos: Jacob Koestler About the Artist Harminder Judge. Photo: Sorina Reiber Harminder Judge Harminder Judge (b.1982 Rotherham, UK) lives and works in London. He graduated from the Royal Academy Schools, London in 2021. Selected recent solo exhibitions include: Cliff and Cleft, Gathering, Ibiza, Spain, 2024; A Ghost Dance , Matt’s Gallery & The Sunday Painter, London, UK, 2024; Sea and Stone and Rib and Bone , Jhaveri Contemporary, Mumbai, India, 2023; Frieze London with The Sunday Painter, London, UK 2022; Rising Skin from Rock and Chin , The Sunday Painter, London, UK 2022; Ankles Absorbing Ash , Humber Street Gallery, Hull, UK 2022; Mountains and Mercies , galeriepcp, Paris, France 2021. Selected recent group exhibitions include: It Never Entered My Mind , Curated by Michael Sherman, Sean Kelly Gallery, LA, USA 2024; Picnic at Hanging Rock Chapter I , Sargent’s Daughters, LA, USA 2024; Curated By: Glossary , Galerie Kandlhofer, Vienna, Austria 2023; The Reason for Painting , Mead Gallery, Warwick, UK 2023; Love Letter, Pace Gallery, New York City, USA 2023; And this skin of mine , Guts Gallery, London, UK 2022; New Beginnings , Blindspot Gallery, Hong Kong, 2022; The Horror Show! , Somerset House, London, UK 2022; A Grain of Sand , The Sunday Painter, London, UK 2021; Am I Human To You? , Jugendstilsenteret & Kube Museum, Ålesund, Norway 2021; Tomorrow: London , White Cube, London, UK 2020; Our Ashes Make Great Fertilizer , Public Gallery, London, UK 2020; At Home In The Universe, Jhaveri Contemporary, Mumbai, India 2019 and A Plot For The Multiverse , Indigo + Madder, London, UK 2019.

Jul 7, 2023-Jan 7, 2024 Don't mind if I do Lukaza Branfman-Verissimo Pelenakeke Brown Sky Cubacub Emilie L. Gossiaux Felicia Griffin Joselia Rebekah Hughes Jeff Kasper and Finnegan Shannon Jul 7, 2023-Jan 7, 2024 Don't mind if I do , installation at moCa Cleveland, 2023. Photo: Jacob Koestler Organized in collaboration with Finnegan Shannon Finnegan Shannon is a creator of loopholes. Their work is mischievous, methodically chipping away at traditional museum practices. By framing institutional change as artwork, the pace of possibility quickens. With Shannon at the helm, Don’t mind if I do is an experiment in more deeply collaborative exhibition-making, demonstrating how even temporary changes in power structures create pathways of access for visitors, artists, and staff. Grounded in a longtime fantasy of the artist’s–an idea of an exhibition setup that would lavishly meet their access needs–this project developed around a conveyor belt. Embraced for its efficiency and mechanized transport of goods (even sushi), this equipment is reappropriated here as a vehicle for cultivating a more relaxed museum-going experience. The conveyor belt brings artwork to audience members, who are invited to sit on comfortable furniture and engage with a parade of objects through any combination of touch, sight, and sound. Sharing the work of seven artists who have influenced Shannon’s practice, Don’t mind if I do blurs boundaries between public and private. It puts representations of everyday life that are usually tucked away at home on display. Plastic pill bottles scattered across nightstands share space with a tissue box cover that reminds us of moments of sickness and sadness. Sculptural snapshots of an intimate interspecies bond sit beside gender-affirming packers that feel most at home tucked inside our clothes. They signify illness, reveal systems of support, and are used in play. Don’t mind if I do destabilizes rigid ableist and exclusionary museum “best practices” like sparse seating, untouchable objects, dense wall labels, and guards who protect rather than invite engagement. It is a project built upon a framework of flexibility. By welcoming glitches, inviting informality and messiness, and unsettling the hierarchy of objects, Don’t mind if I do prioritizes people over artwork and makes more room for us to show up as our full selves. A NOTE FROM FINNEGAN SHANNON: This project is the realization of my access fantasy !! I’m disabled and I need to sit and I love to sit. I’ve been dreaming about an exhibition where instead of having to move from artwork to artwork, I could sit somewhere comfortable and have the artwork come to me. So voilà! A conveyor belt of artworks surrounded by a variety of seating options. When planning this project, a big question was: what artwork should the conveyor carry? The artists, writers, and thinkers featured nourish my life and practice, and I can’t resist a chance to share their work. Each of the objects presented asks for varied ways of interacting and opens up possibilities for how and what an artwork can convey. Don’t mind if I do, Finnegan Shannon The Lewis Gallery is accessible via elevator. Accessible gendered bathrooms are on the ground level and single-stall gender-neutral bathrooms are located on the third floor. All the artwork in this show can be touched. Seating and audio description are both available as a part of the show. The conveyor belt motor makes a soft but high-pitched ringing sound; we have disposable earplugs available. The space will have three air purifiers. Please wear a mask when visiting this exhibition in solidarity with the artists and your fellow visitors. Generous support provided by the Ford Foundation. Additional support provided by David C. Lamb. Installation Images Don't mind if I do . Installation views at moCa Cleveland, 2023. Photos: Jacob Koestler About the Artists Lukaza Branfman-Verissimo Lukaza Branfman-Verissimo Lukaza Branfman-Verissimo (they/them/Lukaza) is an artist, activist, educator, storyteller, cultural worker, and person of multitudes. Through a practice based in the printed multiple, community-based work, painting, performance and installation building, they invite the viewer to recall and share their own lived narratives, offering power and weight to the creation of a larger dialogue around the telling of B.I.Q.T.P.O.C. (Black, Indigenous, Queer, Trans, People of color) stories. Branfman-Verissimo has had solo shows at SEPTEMBER Gallery, Deli Gallery, Roll Up Projects, Printed Matter Inc., and STNDRD Projects. Their work has been included in exhibitions and performances at Konsthall C, EFA Project Space, Leslie Lohman Museum, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and L’Internationale Online, amongst others. They have been awarded residencies and fellowships at The University of New Mexico, Black Space Residency, Kala Art Center, Women’s Studio Workshop, and ACRE Residency. Branfman-Verissimo’s artist books and printed editions have been published by Endless Editions, Childish Books, Press Press and Printed Matter Inc. and are in permanent collections at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, California College of the Arts Printmaking Archive, University of California Santa Cruz Library, New York University Special Collections, and San Francisco Museum of Art Library. Pelenakeke Brown. Photo credit, Papa clothing x Emily Parr. Pelenakeke Brown Pelenakeke Brown (she/her) is a queer, crip, indigenous artist and writer. Brown's practice explores the intersections between disability theory and Sāmoan concepts. Her work investigates sites of knowledge(s), and she uses technology, writing, poetry, and performance to explore these ideas. Brown has worked with The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gibney Dance Center, The New York Library for the Performing Arts, Gibney Dance Center, The Goethe Institute, and other institutions globally. Selected residencies include Eyebeam, The Laundromat Project, and Dance/NYC. She has performed and exhibited her work in the US, UK and Germany. Her non-fiction creative work has been published in The Hawai‘i Review, Apogee Journal, and the Movement Research Performance Journal. Her work has been featured in Art in America and she was recognized in 2020 with a Creative New Zealand Pacific Toa award. Sky Cubacub. Photo by @colectivomultipolar. Sky Cubacub Sky Cubacub (they/them/xey/xem/xyr) is a non-binary xenogender and disabled Filipinx neuroqueer from Chicago, IL. As a multidisciplinary artist, Cubacub is interested in fulfilling the needs for disabled queer life, with an emphasis on joy. They are the creator of Rebirth Garments, a line of wearables for trans, queer and disabled people of all sizes and ages, and Radical Fit, a queer fashion series of programming in partnership with the Chicago Public Library. Cubacub is the editor of the Radical Visibility Zine , which celebrates disabled queer life, and are the Access Brat and editor of Just Femme and Dandy’s section about ethics and inclusion called “Cancel & Gretel.” They have had over 50 fashion performances and have lectured at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Rhode Island School of Design, the University of Utah, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and Northwestern University. Rebirth Garments has been featured in Teen Vogue, Nylon, Playboy, Huffington Post, Buzzfeed, Vice, Wussy Mag , and the New York Times . Cubacub was named 2018 Chicagoan of the Year by the Chicago Tribune and is a 2019/2020 Kennedy Center Citizen Artist and a Disability Futures Fellow. Emilie L. Gossiaux Emilie L. Gossiaux Emilie L. Gossiaux (she/her) received a BFA from The Cooper Union School of Art and an MFA from Yale School of Art. Since losing her vision due to a traffic accident in 2010, Gossiaux’s altered experiences have influenced her practice's trajectory—drawing inspiration from dreams, memories, and non-visual sensory perceptions. Her drawings and ceramics pertain to bodily autonomy, exploring themes such as love, intimacy, and the interdependent relationships between humans and non-human species. Much of her work is inspired by the interspecies bond she has with her Guide Dog, London, and celebrates disability pride. Simultaneously, she disrupts the Anthropocene understanding of agency and the hierarchic ordering between humans and animals. Solo shows include Significant Otherness and Memory of a Body, both at Mother Gallery, and After Image at False Flag Gallery. Gossiaux has also participated in group shows at the John Michael Kohler Art Center, the Aldrich Museum, Gallery 400, MoMA PS1, Museum für Moderne Kunst Frankfurt, and SculptureCenter. Awards include a John F. Kennedy Center VSA Prize, the Wynn Newhouse Award, the Colene Brown Art Prize, and The Queens Museum Jerome Foundation Fellowship. Her work has been featured in The Brooklyn Rail, The New Yorker, and Art in America. Felicia Griffin. Photo credit: Andria Lo. Felicia Griffin Felicia Griffin (she/her) is a prolific multimedia artist based in Richmond, California. She has been exhibiting work with Nurturing Independence Through Artistic Development (NIAD) Art Center since 1985. The following is an edited excerpt from a conversation between Felicia Griffin and former NIAD art facilitator Lukaza Branfman-Verissimo. The complete interview can be found in Issue 6 of New Life Quarterly, published by E.M. Wolfman Books. What would you like us to know about you? Who is Felecia Griffin? Um, well, I like to…have fun and I love my friends and I want to do some more pompoms and I like doing my art. What are you working on right now? A pompom. I made two pillows and put pompoms on the pillows. Why do you like to make art that involves circles? That’s a repeated shape in your pompoms, prints, and paintings — where does that circle shape come from? The circle is inside of me, a square too. I see it in the world too. You engage with a lot of people while you work—how does that relate to your art making? Yep, I like doing it and um, I like to help out. It makes me feel happy! I started doing this: giving gifts. I am always looking out for who needs help. Do you consider [other artists] your family? YEEEAAAAS! I care for people — yes! A work by Joselia Rebekah Hughes Joselia Rebekah Hughes Joselia Rebekah Hughes (she/her) is a Mad and disabled Afro-Caribbean writer, artist, and educator based in the Bronx. She is a poetry editor at Apogee Journal. Hughes’s work hops in the lineage of Black disabled aesthetics and linguistics of access. She uses wordplay, oral traditions, and the archetype of The Fool as measures to question and provoke societal perceptions and values regarding chronic illness, Madness, neurodivergence, and disability. Her practicing mediums include video and photography, dance, literature, small sculpture, fiber work, drawing, zine-making, and drawing/painting. She's shared work at the Institute of Contemporary Art: VCU, Participant Inc., Lincoln Center, MoMA, Leslie Lohman Museum, Bard, Swarthmore, Whitney Museum of American Art, and elsewhere. Hughes’s poetry has been nominated for Best of Net and has been published in Apogee Journal, Massachusetts Review, The Poetry Project, Split This Rock, Blackflash Magazine, Leste Magazine, Jewish Currents, and Ocean State Review. Jeff Kasper Jeff Kasper Jeff Kasper (he/him) is an artist, writer, and educator. He works with the tools and techniques of design, contemplative practices, and community engagement, to create public art, publications, open editions, workshops, and participatory learning projects. His artworks center dialogical, reflective, and instructional texts that often prompt meditation, relationship building, and serious play. Based on his own lived experiences and observations, much of his recent projects explore topics of support, safety, and proximity. Through his disability arts organizing, he opens up spaces for (re)imagining accessible and trauma-aware futures. His recent exhibitions have been presented internationally, including with New York City Department of Parks & Recreation, Meta Open Arts, and Queens Museum, and his past public programs have been facilitated with BRIC, CUE Art Foundation, and moCa Cleveland. Kasper is Assistant Professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst in the Department of Art. Finnegan Shannon Finnegan Shannon Finnegan Shannon (they/them) is a project-based artist. They experiment with forms of access that intervene in ableist structures with humor, earnestness, rage, and delight. Some of their recent work includes Anti-Stairs Club Lounge, an ongoing project that gathers people together who share an aversion to stairs; Alt-Text as Poetry, a collaboration with Bojana Coklyat that explores the expressive potential of image description; and Do You Want Us Here or Not, a series of benches and cushions designed for exhibition spaces. They have done projects with Banff Centre, Queens Museum, the High Line, MMK Frankfurt, the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, and Nook Gallery. Their work has been supported by a 2018 Wynn Newhouse Award, a 2019 residency at Eyebeam, 2020 grant from Art Matters Foundation, and a 2022 grant from The Canada Council for the Arts. Their work has been written about in Art in America, BOMB Magazine, The Believer, and the New York Times. They live and work in Brooklyn, NY.

Jan 27, 2023-Jan 7, 2024 Nina Chanel Abney Cafeteria 2 Jan 27, 2023-Jan 7, 2024 Nina Chanel Abney, Cafeteria 2 , installation view at moCa Cleveland, 2023. Site-specific vinyl mural, 313.5 x 536.5 in (796.29 x 1362.71 cm). Courtesy the artist. About the Exhibition Nina Chanel Abney’s site-specific mural, Cafeteria 2 , was first unveiled alongside her solo exhibition at moCa, Big Butch Synergy (Jan 27-Jun 11, 2023). This mural incorporates elements from Big Butch Synergy and expands on Fishing Was His Life , her series of collages inspired by Gordon Parks’s photographs documenting the 1940s fishing industry in Gloucester, MA and at New York City’s Fulton Fish Market. Abney transports audiences to a bustling cafeteria to explore themes of desire, loathing, and personal value in relation to gender and racial identity. Within this marketplace, sneakers, basketballs, and other goods are balanced by images of figures and price tags. She encourages visitors to think about how these goods are often read as masculine, contributing to the social dynamics that impact gender performance. Price tags connecting to the objects and figures highlight capitalism as a dominant power structure that we use to assign value to individuals based on race, class, gender, and social status. At the base of this larger-than-life image, the artist includes “I AM,” paying homage to the pivotal “I Am A Man” signage used in the 1968 Memphis Sanitation Strike during the Civil Rights Movement. By notably omitting the word “man,” Abney leaves space for her experiences; she shines a light on discriminatory systems that work to maintain heteronormative ideals–beliefs that assume heterosexuality as the default sexual orientation–while also highlighting how the objects depicted have supported the formation of her identity as a Black, queer, masculine-of-center woman. This omission opens up the phrase as a resource for self-advocacy, while also reminding us about how our biased systems continue to center certain identities over others. Lead support for Cafeteria 2 provided by Joanne Cohen & Morris Wheeler. Additional support provided by The Dominion Energy Charitable Foundation. Installation Images Nina Chanel Abney, Cafeteria 2 . Installation view at moCa Cleveland, 2023. Photo: Jacob Koestler About the Artist NIna Chanel Abney Nina Chanel Abney Nina Chanel Abney (b. 1982, Chicago) strives to signal narratives that speak to topics on politics, heritage, race, sexuality, and celebrity. The figures in her works typically appear as heavily stylized, graphic, geometric shapes against vivid backgrounds overlaid with symbols and patterns. Known for her frenetic, large-scale paintings, Abney has recently been commissioned to transform the Lincoln Center’s new David Geffen Hall’s façade in New York, drawing from the cultural heritage of the neighborhood previously known as San Juan Hill that comprised African American, Afro-Caribbean, and Puerto Rican families, which she similarly did recently for a public mural at the new Miami World Center inspired by Overtown, a historic Black neighborhood in Miami. Her first solo exhibition debuted in 2017 at Nasher Museum of Art, North Carolina, and subsequently toured to Chicago Cultural Center; Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles and the California African American Museum; and the Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase College, State University of New York. Recent exhibitions include The Gordon Parks Institute (2022), The Art Gallery of New South Wales (2021), ICA Boston (2020), The Contemporary Dayton (2019), The Norton Museum of Art (2019), and Palais de Tokyo (2018). Her work is in the collections of MoMA New York, The Rubell Family Collection, The Brooklyn Museum, Bronx Museum and the Burger Collection, Hong Kong. Exhibition Materials ▶ Wall Text ▶ Gallery Guide ▶ Videos

T.E.A.M. Info Session Aug 22, 2024 Join in an info session to learn more about the T.E.A.M. paid internship for teens, find out more about art and culture career paths and teen opportunities offered at the museum, and discuss the importance of cultivating a support system for creative teens. About the T.E.A.M. Program: T.E.A.M. gives participants the tools to amplify their voice and provides opportunity for critical thinking, creative expression and leadership through the arts. For 7 months teens are immersed in workshops, field trips, guidance from moCa's staff, Cleveland artists, art professionals and more! About Join in an info session to learn more about the T.E.A.M. paid internship for teens, find out more about art and culture career paths and teen opportunities offered at the museum, and discuss the importance of cultivating a support system for creative teens. About the T.E.A.M. Program: T.E.A.M. gives participants the tools to amplify their voice and provides opportunity for critical thinking, creative expression and leadership through the arts. For 7 months teens are immersed in workshops, field trips, guidance from moCa's staff, Cleveland artists, art professionals and more! Join in an info session to learn more about the T.E.A.M. paid internship for teens, find out more about art and culture career paths and teen opportunities offered at the museum, and discuss the importance of cultivating a support system for creative teens. About the T.E.A.M. Program: T.E.A.M. gives participants the tools to amplify their voice and provides opportunity for critical thinking, creative expression and leadership through the arts. For 7 months teens are immersed in workshops, field trips, guidance from moCa's staff, Cleveland artists, art professionals and more!

Studio Access w/ Manabu Ikeda Mar 8, 2024 Experience the artist create onsite at moCa as he develops a new monumental artwork over the course of the Winter/Spring season. Generous support for Manabu Ikeda's artist residency and programming by Flagstar Foundation. RELATED EXHIBITION: Manabu Ikeda: Flowers from the Wreckage About Experience the artist create onsite at moCa as he develops a new monumental artwork over the course of the Winter/Spring season. Generous support for Manabu Ikeda's artist residency and programming by Flagstar Foundation. RELATED EXHIBITION: Manabu Ikeda: Flowers from the Wreckage Experience the artist create onsite at moCa as he develops a new monumental artwork over the course of the Winter/Spring season. Generous support for Manabu Ikeda's artist residency and programming by Flagstar Foundation. RELATED EXHIBITION: Manabu Ikeda: Flowers from the Wreckage

Feb 2-May 26, 2024 Andrea Bowers Exist, Flourish, Evolve Feb 2-May 26, 2024 Andrea Bowers, Rights of Nature I, 2022, neon. Photo: Glen Cheriton, Impart Photography LA-based artist Andrea Bowers bears witness in her work, drawing attention to and inspiring movement around the most urgent issues of our time. Her drawings, sculptures, installations, and films chronicle and preserve history as it occurs, documenting collective action and amplifying the labor and lived experiences of activists dedicated to socio-political change. Developed through an ongoing partnership with the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) and activist Tish O’Dell, Exist, Flourish, Evolve is a new, multi-site, multimedia campaign that builds awareness and action around the dangers facing Lake Erie and all of the Great Lakes ecosystems. It features a monumental neon sculpture installed on a waterfront balcony of the Great Lakes Science Center; a documentary investigating the impact of factory farming on Lake Erie’s ecosystem; and a presentation in moCa’s Lewis Gallery that includes a newly-created drawing of the Lake Erie Bill of Rights, first-of-its-kind legislation protecting an entire US ecosystem that is part of the global Rights of Nature Movement. Bowers was raised in the small town of Huron, Ohio and spent her childhood on the shores of Lake Erie, connecting to the lake itself like a member of her family to be cared for, cherished, and protected. Yet, Lake Erie and its watershed are abused and endangered by corporate practices such as contaminant dumping, toxic runoff from industrial farming, and the introduction of non-native invasive species. Exist, Flourish, Evolve demands justice for the Great Lakes, urging us to prioritize the preservation of our natural ecology over industrialization and capitalism. Within moCa’s gallery, a timeline connects Bowers’s new and recent artworks with historical facts and archival materials using two catastrophic climate events as bookends to Bowers’s life thus far: the 1969 fire on the Lake Erie-connected Cuyahoga River (a result of oil slicks covering the water) and the massive 2014 algae bloom that blanketed Lake Erie and invaded Toledo’s water systems, preventing residents from using tap water. From the Maumee to the Cuyahoga, the works in Exist, Flourish, Evolve come together to share the histories of our water, demonstrate the interconnectedness of ourselves and our natural world, and remind us, as Dr. Vandana Shiva states, “nature is not out there; we are a part of it.” Commission sponsorship provided by Generous support from Chuck & Char Fowler, Joanne Cohen & Morris Wheeler, and Nicholas & Erin Reif Community Partners: Installation Images Andrea Bowers, Exist, Flourish, Evolve. Installation views at moCa Cleveland, 2024, and Great Lakes Science Center exterior, 2024. Photos: Jacob Koestler About the Artist Andrea Bowers. Courtesy Fondazione Furla Andrea Bowers (b. 1964, Ohio) is a Los Angeles-based artist who has been recording and amplifying the work of activists present and past for more than two decades. Her multi-media practice includes drawing, video, sculpture, and installation work that foregrounds the experience of the people who dedicate their time and energy to the struggle for gender, racial, environmental, labor, and immigration justice and those who are directly affected by systemic inequality. Over time, her different bodies of work have become a document of the changing language, prerogatives, and dynamics of social justice movements. In 2021 a major mid-career survey of Bowers’s work curated by Michael Darling and Connie Butler opened at the MCA Chicago and traveled to the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles in 2022. Other recent solo exhibitions include Grief and Hope , Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach, Germany and Light and Gravity , Weserburg Museum für moderne Kunst, Bremen, Germany. In September 2022, Bowers opened a solo exhibition including both new and existing work at the Galleria d’Arte Moderna di Milano as part of an exhibition program organized by the Fondazione Furla. Bowers is represented by Vielmetter Los Angeles, Andrew Kreps Gallery, Kaufmann Repetto, and Jessica Silverman Gallery.

Feb 2-May 26, 2024 BlackBrain SCRD GRDN Feb 2-May 26, 2024 BlackBrain, Diamond Heart , mural in process, 2024. SCRD GRDN is a new project by BlackBrain and guest artists from Julia de Burgos Cultural Arts Center, Unidos por el Arte. Representing a metamorphosis from lone artist into collective creative force and guided by the mantra "go fast, go alone; go far, go together," BlackBrain Group transforms solitary endeavors into dynamic collaborations grounded in a shared passion for storytelling through art. SCRD GRDN is an immersive painting installation about the resolute human spirit and its existential journey through oppression, justice, prosperity, and divine understanding. Fusing artistic styles and techniques, the series meditates on the interplay and influence between the inner self and the external forces that shape our existence. Each work includes symbolic, complex images floating within black voids, suggesting fertile seeds of existence that hold and balance tensions such as joy and melancholy, control and chaos, movement and stillness. Drawing inspiration from the awe and grandeur of Renaissance frescoes and monumental stained glass windows, the installation seeks to embody and express sacred meaning today. Comprehensively, SCRD GRDN creates a visual sanctuary where the diverse voices and experiences of the artists–and also, importantly, audience members–converge, intermingle, and resonate. As the artists’ encourage, “Join us on this visual odyssey—a journey that surpasses the conventional, ushering in a new era of shared experiences and inner growth.” SCRD GRDN is a project of moCa’s institutional and early career artist residency with the Julia De Burgos Cultural Arts Center (JDBCAC) from January 2023-May 2024. Situated within the heart of Cleveland’s Brooklyn Centre neighborhood, JDBCAC is an organization committed to the transformational power of preserving, educating, and promoting Latino heritage through history, culture, and the arts. JDBCAC occupies and engages spaces on moCa’s first and third floors in relation to its mission and work, and co-designs programming with moCa aimed at nurturing the next generation of artistic voices, providing a platform for Cuyahoga County-based residency artists to present their creations in a group exhibition at moCa Cleveland last season. advance the work of Latino/a/x artists and artists of color and provide new professional development opportunities. In 2023, BlackBrain artist Ariel Vergez took on the role of mentor artist to a new generation of artist voices involved in the moCa/JDBCAC early career artist residency, providing a platform for Cuyahoga County-based residency artists to present their creations in the group exhibition ¡Juntos! last year. Vergez, with his experience and innovative spirit, guided these emerging artists, illustrating the reciprocal relationship between mentor and mentee. Generous support provided by Margaret Cohen & Kevin Rahilly, The Cleveland Foundation, and the Callahan Foundation Installation Images BlackBrain, SCRD GRDN. Installation views at moCa Cleveland, 2024. Photos: Jacob Koestler About the Artist BlackBrain Ariel Vergez, aka BlackBrain, is a seasoned artist with a rich heritage and a passion for storytelling through art. Born in the Dominican Republic and raised in Florida, BlackBrain is the child of two immigrants who came to the United States in search of opportunity and met each other while working in the service industry. Growing up in a household where art was a daily presence, BlackBrain pursued his passion for art at the collegiate level, studying Industrial Design at the Cleveland Institute of Art. With a background in product and graphic design, BlackBrain has worked with world-class brands and has a keen understanding of the importance of storytelling in design. He has fused that experience towards his first love art. This experience is evident in BlackBrain’s art series, which feature unique narratives, a cross-wiring of pop culture icons, and a vuja dé feeling of nostalgia. BlackBrain layers allegory, pop culture, and history to create new and at times, bizarre stories that inflect on the ‘remembered.’ Over the past decade, BlackBrain has been featured in a plethora of shows and has created a range of concentration of subject matter. He has completed a slew of murals worldwide, many of them focused in Los Angeles and Miami, his previous homes. BlackBrain is particularly known for his ability to tell stories through his art, which is a reflection of his pursuit to expound parody and symbolism as key tools to his method of creating rich visual stories. With a portfolio that spans across different mediums and styles, BlackBrain continues to push the boundaries of what art can be and challenge our perceptions of the world around us. His art is a dissection of ancient and pop cultural story telling. It work has a diversity that makes his art so unique and relate-able while maintaing mystery and depth.

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Forming Fearless Faces: A Free Mask-Making Family Workshop Nov 8, 2024 REGISTER TODAY! OFFSITE at Julia de Burgos Cultural Arts Center, 2800 Archwood Ave, Cleveland, OH 44109 5:30PM – Meet & Greet with light refreshments 6PM – Mask-making begins Explore a variety of materials—from man-made and recycled to natural elements—as you create a mask that tells a story all your own. No experience is necessary. The workshop is led by native Mexican artist, Ruben Ulises Rodriguez Montoya. Afterward, make sure to check out Ruben's first solo U.S. exhibition which is on view at moCa Cleveland through December 29, 2024. ✨ Presented by moCa Cleveland & Julia de Burgos Cultural Arts Center About REGISTER TODAY! OFFSITE at Julia de Burgos Cultural Arts Center, 2800 Archwood Ave, Cleveland, OH 44109 5:30PM – Meet & Greet with light refreshments 6PM – Mask-making begins Explore a variety of materials—from man-made and recycled to natural elements—as you create a mask that tells a story all your own. No experience is necessary. The workshop is led by native Mexican artist, Ruben Ulises Rodriguez Montoya. Afterward, make sure to check out Ruben's first solo U.S. exhibition which is on view at moCa Cleveland through December 29, 2024. ✨ Presented by moCa Cleveland & Julia de Burgos Cultural Arts Center REGISTER TODAY! OFFSITE at Julia de Burgos Cultural Arts Center, 2800 Archwood Ave, Cleveland, OH 44109 5:30PM – Meet & Greet with light refreshments 6PM – Mask-making begins Explore a variety of materials—from man-made and recycled to natural elements—as you create a mask that tells a story all your own. No experience is necessary. The workshop is led by native Mexican artist, Ruben Ulises Rodriguez Montoya. Afterward, make sure to check out Ruben's first solo U.S. exhibition which is on view at moCa Cleveland through December 29, 2024. ✨ Presented by moCa Cleveland & Julia de Burgos Cultural Arts Center

Jan 30-Aug 2, 2026 Homing Instinct Letting Go of The Shore Jan 30-Aug 2, 2026 Homing Instinct: Letting Go of The Shore is a 26-minute multi-screen film installation by New York-based filmmaker Lydia Dean Pilcher. It is based on a short story of the same name by Cincinnati-based author Dani McClain, published in the anthology Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements . Presented on a continuous loop, this immersive story focuses on human resilience in the face of climate crises. Set in a near-future world of rising sea levels, it follows two friends, Raven and Paloma, as they decide how to respond to a federal order to evacuate coastal regions within 30 days and permanently relocate elsewhere. For Pilcher and McClain, confronting fossil-fuel dependence and resource depletion requires not just policy change, but new narrative approaches to inspire connection and transformation. Weaving together reality, dreams, and the metaphysical, Homing Instinct draws upon science fiction and Afrofuturist concepts and integrates dance, poetry, and striking visual design (shaped by art director Syou Nam Thai) to convey the emotional weight of facing change and trusting the unknown. It also reminds us that we are not part of nature, but nature itself. About the Artists Dani McClain DANI McCLAIN McClain reports on race, parenting and reproductive health. Her writing has appeared in outlets including "The New York Times," "TIME," "The Atlantic" and "Harper's Bazaar." Her work has been recognized by the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association, the National Association of Black Journalists and Planned Parenthood Federation of America, and she has received a James Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism. McClain is a contributing writer at "The Nation." She was a staff reporter at the "Milwaukee Journal Sentinel" and has worked as a strategist with organizations including Color of Change and the Drug Policy Alliance. Her book, "We Live for the We: The Political Power of Black Motherhood," was published in 2019 by Bold Type Books and was shortlisted in 2020 for a Hurston/Wright Legacy Award. She was the Cincinnati Public Library's writer-in-residence in 2020 and 2021. Lydia Dean Pilcher LYDIA DEAN PILCHER Pilcher is a two-time Emmy-winning and Academy Award-nominated producer. She is founder of the New York-based production company Cine Mosaic, working in the international landscape of cinema and multicultural storytelling. Before transitioning to writing and directing, she produced more than 40 feature films and series working with directors including Mira Nair, Gina Prince-Bythewood, Wes Anderson, Barry Levinson, George C. Wolfe and Kathryn Bigelow. Her director credits include the World War II female spy thriller "A Call to Spy" and the climate narratives "Radium Girls" and "Homing Instinct." She works with the UNFCCC initiative Entertainment and Culture for Climate Action and is a leader in the film and television industry promoting climate storytelling in entertainment and media. Pilcher teaches Climatic Change: Storytelling Arts, Zeitgeist and Our Future as an interdisciplinary course at the Columbia University Climate School in collaboration with the School of the Arts.

Jan 24-Jun 1, 2025 Birthing Beautiful Communities Dear Jan 24-Jun 1, 2025 Photo: shark&minnow Dear is a tribute to the strength, resilience, and beauty of Black motherhood and the community that supports it. This exhibition focuses on the Cleveland non-profit Birthing Beautiful Communities, highlighting the significance of care and affirmation in their work. Dear is an ode to the power of community and the enduring bond of motherhood. Presented in partnership with Birthing Beautiful Communities & moCa Cleveland. Generous support provided by The George Gund Foundation. Exhibition creation & design: shark&minnow Photography: Dana McKinney, shark&minnow Videography: Ashwin Gokhale, shark&minnow Installation Images Birthing Beautiful Communities, Dear. Installation views at moCa Cleveland, 2025. Photos: Jacob Koestler A special thanks to: Tonya, Myesha, Deyonni, Heather, Sylest, and Nautica for their courage, resilience, and openness in sharing their stories and villages to inspire and uplift others. We are honored to celebrate your journey and the joy they each have brought to this exhibit. The doulas at Birthing Beautiful Communities for their continued work in supporting mothers, babies, and families in the journey of parenthood.

Jun 28-Dec 29, 2024 Ruben Ulises Rodriguez Montoya Skinchangers: Begotten of my Flesh Jun 28-Dec 29, 2024 Ruben Ulises Rodriguez Montoya, As I willed myself out of entropy, 2022 2024 Toby's Prize Exhibition Ruben Ulises Rodriguez Montoya presents a new body of work in his first solo museum exhibition, Skinchangers: Begotten of my Flesh, opening June 2024. This show expands upon the artist’s 2022 exhibition at Sargent’s Daughters entitled James Webb and the Thestral Born Without a Vertebrae , which shares the story of a vampire forced to reconstitute its body from space debris following the destruction of the last spaceship leaving an apocalypse-ravaged Earth. A work of speculative fiction, Skinchangers: Begotten of my Flesh collapses linear time, fueling our anxiety of the unfamiliar while demanding reflection on how histories of abuse allow for a future seepage of toxicity. Using expanded polystyrene as a building block (after all, what material other than plastic can survive the end of the world?), Montoya transforms moCa’s Lewis Gallery into the interior of this last spaceship, complete with a celestial soundtrack that draws us into the darkness of the unknown. Mythical, shape-shifting creatures known as Nahuales that hatched aboard the vessel during an eon of astral travel hang from the spacecraft’s ceiling. Hovering in antigravity yet tethered to the ship’s architecture, their eternal home serves as both captor and protector. These Nahuales are a part of the artist’ cast of characters, cohabitating with their vampiric guardian and the spacecraft’s mainframe, which itself is a sentient being, the beating heart that fuels the vessel throttling through space. Made from detritus of capitalist consumption, vestiges of the sentient, and materials that teeter on the edge of abjection, Montoya’s alchemical creatures feed off each other. They are stand-ins for the human body, used to explore how violence erases and eradicates communities of color. In this future apocalypse, processes of decay, regeneration, and shapeshifting for protection and survival graft new meaning upon our understandings of an “ecosystem.” In addition to the exhibition, Montoya is designing a suite of activities for audience engagement and creating his first publication (available in Fall 2024). He is the third recipient of Toby’s Prize, a biannual award sponsored by philanthropist Toby Devan Lewis (1934-2022) and created to advance the work of emerging artists through exhibitions and publications. This exhibition is presented through Toby’s Prize, a biennial award made possible by Toby Devan Lewis. Installation Images Ruben Ulises Rodriguez Montoya, Skinchangers: Begotten of my Flesh. Installation views at moCa Cleveland, 2024. Photos: Tom Little About the Artist Ruben Ulises Rodriguez Montoya Ruben Ulises Rodriguez Montoya Ruben Ulises Rodriguez Montoya (b.1989 in Parral, Mexico) is based in Mexico City. Montoya received his MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2020. Montoya creates sculptures that are fantastic beings centered around anthologies and social issues concerning border culture, abjection, adaptation, and mestizaje. Montoya’s practice is aided by Speculative Fiction, Nahualismo, Sci-Fi, and the labor of his family. His work hybridizes and creates parallels between land, the human, and the animal as a way to investigate the process in which violence eradicates, erases, and erodes communities of color. Upcoming exhibitions include Flow States – LA TRIENAL 2024 at El Museo de Barrio (New York, NY) and a solo exhibition of new work at ICA San Diego (San Diego, CA). Recent exhibitions include an untitled group exhibition at Artists Space (New York, NY), Perhaps the Truth at Ballroom Marfa (Marfa, TX), La Casa Erosionada at Anahuacalli Museum (Coyacan, MX), James Webb and The Thestral Born Without a Vertebrate at Sargent’s Daughters (New York, NY), and were-:Nenetech Forms at MOCA Tucson (Tucson, AZ).