Hand Tools of Resilience: An International Juried Exhibition

Hand Tools of Resilience is an international juried exhibition that appears throughout Nikesha Breeze’s Four Sites of Return. The project invited African diasporic and Indigenous artists to examine the conscious and unconscious tools that Black and Indigenous people have created to survive, thrive and build within oppressive and abusive systems. 

Artists from across the world conceptualized new tools with Afrofuturistic functionalities. They are tools that might extinguish gaslighting and passive racist treatment, or shields that represent covert and overt armor and talismans. They are wedges for loosening systems of supremacy and abuse, or chisels for shaping new Black and Indigenous realities. 

Convened by Nikesha Breeze, the jury included Indigenous artist Rose B. Simpson; Ghanaian artist and activist Kwame Akoto-Bamfo; artist Le’Andra LeSeur, and independent curator Isra Rene.

ARTISTS:

Alfonso Piloto Nieves Ruiz, Alicia Piller, Celestino Crowhill, Cory Perry, D. Anaya, Elizabeth Peralta, Isatu Kaigziabiher, Jackie Mitchell Edwards, Joelle Estelle Mendoza, Kristyn McKinney, Loren Adeyinka, Mona Cliff, Nickeyia Johnson, Rebecca White Youngblood, Sonja Henderson & Robert "Free" Bradford, Suldano Abdiruhman, Tigre (Bailando) Mashaal-Lively, Tintawi Kaigziabiher, Bronte Velez, Christina Springer, Edward Onsoh, India Davis, Kianah Jay, Kiia Wilson, Luckie Daniels, Martin Toloku, Sienna Prillaman, Tyrell Blacquemoss, Asiegbu Collins Uzoh