Engine for Art, Democracy & Justice

Resonance — an invitation to gather, to commune with, to listen deeply — opens May 10 at Fondazione Giorgio e Armanda Marchesani, Fondamenta Rossa, Dorsoduro, Venice — with a full day of conversations, performances, and sonic sessions from 11:00 to 17:00 Cental EuropeanTime (CET). RSVP and full schedule: vanderbilt.edu/venice-resonance/schedule Link in our bio. @maria_magdalena_campos_pons , @kamaalmalak , @debwillisphoto , @grace_aneiza_ali , @georges.adeagbo , @theglobalartproject , @naiza_khan_art , @siddharthamitter , @invisible.flaneuse , @adamadelphine , @orgnzd.visuals

The Engine for Art, Democracy & Justice (EADJ) and its Founder, Dr. María Magdalena Campos-Pons,  would like to thank everyone who came out to the opening reception for the new exhibition at Begonia Labs, “Melungeon"! The exhibition features the photography  practice  of artist, Tamara Reynolds ( @tamarareynoldsphotography ). The exhibition was curated by Grace Aneiza Ali (@grace_aneiza_ali ). If you were not able to see the exhibition or would like to revisit, check out our weekly visitor hours! The EADJ team will be hosting visitor hours on Thursdays and Fridays, 4:00 – 7:00 p.m. and Saturdays from 1:00 – 4:00 p.m. Exhibition on view: from March 23 – June 26, 2026 Begonia Labs | 2805 West End Avenue Nashville, TN 37203. The exhibition is a portrait of Sneedville, Tennessee, a community associated with the Melungeons—a mixed-race people whose ancestry draws from African, Native American, and European lineages. Treated as racially indeterminate and marked by suspicion, they were historically pushed to the margins of Appalachian life, finding refuge in the ridges and hollows of East Tennessee. Through Tamara Reynolds’s lens, their histories of migration, mixture, and myth emerge as a lived inheritance: layered, complex, and evolving. Caption: Opening Reception for the Melungeon  exhibition at Begonia Labs. Photos by LeXander Bryant (@orgnzd.visuals ).

We are sharing details about a partner event, “Then and Now”, that is happening with Martin Luther King, Jr. Magnet School. Then and Now: Hearing and Communications Impairments – Wednesday, April 8, 2026 from 5:30- 8:00 pm. Dr. André Churchwell, Vanderbilt's Senior Advisor to the Chancellor on Inclusion and Community Outreach, will join Dominique Herrinton, Operations Manager for Pi Beta Phi Rehabilitation Institute, Vanderbilt Bill Wilkerson Center, Sandy Cohen, Originator of Accessibility Services for Nashville Public Library, and Cynthia Moyniham, Equal Access Manager for Nashville Library Services for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, for a special discussion. The discussion will explore the history of disability development in the Nashville community and feature stories from leaders with hearing and communication impairments in the city. Event Details: The event is free and open to the public. Registration link in our bio. DATE: Wednesday, April 8, 2026 TIME: 5:30- 8:00 pm. PLACE: Main Auditorium, MLK, JR. Magnet High School, 613 17th Ave North, Nashville, TN 37203.

Many congratulations to Tamara Reynolds for opening her new exhibtion “Melungeon” at Begonia Labs with @eadj.program ! The show is on view through the end of this Spring 2026 semester. Visit the Engine for Art, Democracy & Justice website for more information!

We are sharing details about a partner event, “Beyond the Divide: An American Medicine Panel and Conversation”, that is being hosted by Millions of Conversations (@amillionconvos ) and happening with Bordeaux Public Library. Millions of Conversations invites you to Beyond the Divide: An American Medicine Panel and Conversation on Thursday, March 26 at 6:00 PM at the Bordeaux Public Library. Location: 4000 Clarksville Pike, Nashville, TN, 37218. Event Description: As our country contends with a growing trust deficit, our healthcare system is not exempt. Three of Tennessee’s leading physicians will join @amillionconvos to share insights on repairing the patient-provider relationship and navigating our complex medical system. We hope you can join the conversation. Registration link in our bio.

Meet the artist for Begonia Labs' upcoming exhibition, 'Melungeon.' Tamara Reynolds received a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Hartford, where she graduated with honors. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Middle Tennessee State University where she was recently inducted to their Wall of Fame. Reynolds is on the art faculty at Vanderbilt and Belmont universities. She has been a guest lecturer at Brown University, Cassilhaus Gallery, Middle Tennessee University, George Fox University, the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art and Morris Museum of Fine Art. Reynolds’ earlier work, Southern Route, examining Southern identity, conflict, and fading culture, was featured in Southbound, a national exhibition and book curated by Mark Sloan and Mark Long. Her photographs have appeared in major publications such as the New York Times, the Guardian, and PBS News Hour. Her photobook The Drake (Dewi Lewis, 2022), which documents life around a Nashville motel, has garnered honors including a 2021 Guggenheim Fellowship, the 2021 BarTur Photo Award, a 2020 Puffin Grant, the 2019 Tennessee Arts Commission Individual Artist Grant, and the 2018 Santa Fe Center Project Launch Grant. This exhibition is part of Somewhere We Are Human, the Spring 2026 Public Programs series of the Engine for Art, Democracy & Justice at Vanderbilt University. Support is provided by the Ford Foundation and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. For more details about the Melungeon exhibition, visit the link in our bio. The exhibition will be on view at Begonia Labs from March 23–June 26, 2026. Weekly hours for the lab will be Thursdays and Fridays from 4-7pm, on Saturdays from 1-4pm, or by appointment. Begonia Labs | 2805 West End Avenue Nashville, TN 37203 *** Portrait of Tamara Reynolds by George Parker

The Engine for Art, Democracy & Justice and Founder Dr. María Magdalena Campos-Pons (@maria_magdalena_campos_pons ) invites you to join us for the opening reception of our Spring 2026 exhibition, "Melungeon" at Begonia Labs. Opening Reception: Wednesday, March 25, 2026, 6–8 p.m. Exhibition On view: March 23–June 26, 2026 The EADJ Team will hold visitor hours at Begonia Labs on Thursdays and Fridays from 4-7pm, on Saturdays from 1-4pm, or by appointment. Begonia Labs | 2805 West End Avenue Nashville, TN 37203 Melungeon features photographs by Tamara Reynolds (@tamarareynoldsphotography ) exploring Sneedville, Tennessee, and the Melungeon community, a historically marginalized mixed-race Appalachian people. Through portraits, domestic spaces, and landscapes, the exhibition reveals everyday life shaped by land, family, and endurance while challenging simplified narratives of Appalachia and American identity. This exhibition is curated by Grace Aneiza Ali (@grace_aneiza_ali ), EADJ's appointed curator for 2024-2026. This exhibition is part of Somewhere We Are Human, the Spring 2026 Public Programs series of the Engine for Art, Democracy & Justice at Vanderbilt University. Support is provided by the Ford Foundation and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. ***See the link in our bio for details about the exhibition.

The Engine for Art, Democracy & Justice is happy to re-share a writing made by EADJ’s current curator, Grace Aneiza Ali ( @grace_aneiza_ali ) for Burnaway magazine ( @burnaway ). The writing, referred to as “A Curator’s Annotations,” traces specific curatorial choices she has made. Choices to reflect on her belief that “curating is not only about framing meaning, but about creating a space for listening: attentive to artists, to families, to language, to students, and to what remains unsaid.” Within the article, Ali reflects on exhibitions she has curated over the last three years, including “Between Rivers and Revolutions”, a photography exhibition sharing the work of Vanessa Charlot ( @vanessa.charlot ), and “my heart is strong because I walk on blistered feet”, an exhibition of paintings by artist James Kuol Makuac ( @jamesmakuac ). Both exhibitions were previously on display at EADJ’s Begonia Labs on West End Avenue in Nashville, TN. Ali also reflects on exhibitions “Donald Locke: Nexus” (@donaldlockestudio ), which was on view at Atlanta Contemporary in 2024, and “Are We Free to Move About the World” , which was on view at Florida State University Museum of Fine Arts, Tallahassee, FL in 2023. To read the full Burnaway article, check out the link in our bio.

The Engine for Art, Democracy & Justice is excited to congratulate the 2026 Arts Leadership Praxis cohort at the Studio Museum in Harlem (@studiomuseum ). The participants include Nashville Curator, Michael J. Ewing ( @abstractavantgarde_ ), along with Camille Brown (@camillebrown__ ), Jadine Collingwood (@jadine.collingwood ), Grace Deveney (@_free_forms_ ), Destinee Filmore (@destineefilmore ), Annissa Malvoisin (@unexfemmenoire ), Mia Matthias, and Delphine Sims (@smiledelphine ). Michael J. Ewing is an Associate Curator at the Frist Art Museum (@fristartmuseum ) in Nashville, and previously worked with EADJ as the Assistant Curator for Dr. Campos-Pons (@maria_magdalena_campos_pons ) during EADJ’s exhibitions and public program contributions to the 2023 Tennessee Triennial (@tennessee_triennial ) . The 2026 Arts Leadership Praxis cohort will be the first to convene in the Studio Museum’s new purpose-built home.⁠ As the program continues to evolve, its 2026 participants will engage in conversations and seminars with renowned arts professionals, take part in studio visits with notable artists, receive individual mentorship, and attend in-person multi-day workshops in New York, Los Angeles, and Detroit. Learn more about the program and the cohort following this link in @studiomuseum ‘s bio. Caption 1: Image courtesy of the Studio Museum. (Left to right): Camille Brown, Michael J. Ewing, Jadine Collingwood, Grace Deveney, Mia Matthias, Annissa Malvoisin, Delphine Sims, Destinee Filmore. Photo: Ackime Snow Caption 2: Image courtesy of EADJ. Michael J. Ewing presenting the work of Wesley Clark (@wesleyclarkart ), one of the participating artists in EADJ’s exhibition, RE-PAIR, at Begonia Labs during the 2023 Tennessee Triennial.

EADJ is happy to share details about a recent exhibition project by @thewovenwind project and hosted by the Vanderbilt University Museum of Art (@vanderbiltartmuseum ). The Woven Wind project will be on display this spring at the museum from February 14- May 5, 2026, in the Cohen atrium. Woven Wind is a multi-layered artistic endeavor grounded in critical research on the Lovell-Quitman archive, located at the University of the South, Sewanee. Extensive plantation records, photographs, and objects found in the archive, document the lives of the officer William Storrow Lovell and wife Antonia, whose father was John A. Quitman (1799-1858), a large slaveowner and former governor of Mississippi. Scrutinizing the inventories of the enslaved people, produced in 1858 after John A. Quitman’s death, the team of artists worked with a genealogist to locate a family of descendants. Woven Wind project reimagines the Lovell-Quitman archive to construct a platform for education, conversation, empathy, and repair. Weaving the multiple layers of the project together with the descendants and the community, the project reminds the audiences about the shared burden of history.  On view at the museum is a portfolio of photo gravures produced with the experimental map-based ink sourced from Mississippi River by the Mound Bayou based Peter’s Pottery. Together with a series of original photographs of the Monmouth site in Natchez MS, where the Toles family ancestors were enslaved, these photographs conceptually tie the photographic representation with history and site. In the “Woven Wind” project, Vesna Pavlović (@studio_vesnapavlovic ) is the lead artist joined by Nashville-based artists Courtney Adair Johnson (@courtneyadairjohnson )  and Marlos E’van (@marlosevan ), musician Rod McGaha (@rodmcgaha ), community advocate Mélisande Short-Colomb, founding member of the GU272 Advocacy Team, historian Woody Register, Director of the Roberson Project for Slavery, Race and Reconciliation (Sewanee), and family researcher and genealogist, Jan Hillegas.  For more details about the exhibition and programming, visit the @vanderbiltartmuseum website and social media page.

We are sharing about a partner event that is taking place this evening ( Wednesday, January 21) in Nashville.   “Then and Now” is a Vanderbilt partner event that is happening with Martin Luther King, Jr. Magnet School. Dr. André Churchwell, Vanderbilt's Senior Advisor to the Chancellor on Inclusion and Community Outreach, will join Ralph Brewer, Superintendent Emeritus for the Tennessee School for the Blind and Carol Westlake, Senior Advisor & Founding Executive Director for Tennessee's Disability Coalition, for a special discussion. Their discussion will explore the history of Nashville's community living with blindness and visual impairments. The program will also include stories and input from leaders and researchers in the city. Event Details: The event is free and open to the public.  DATE: Wednesday, January 21, 2025 TIME: 5:30- 8:00 pm. PLACE: Main Auditorium, MLK, JR. Magnet High School, 613 17th Ave North, Nashville, TN 37203.