'A Movement in Every Direction' Including Akea Brionne Named One of The New York Times Best Exhibitions of 2022
Akea Brionne’s “An Ode to (You)’all,” 2022, in which she weaves photographic images of forebears who never left the South into icon-like tapestries. Photo: Imani Khayyam for The New York Times
Current student Akea Brionne (Photography 2023) is included in one of The New York Times’ Best Exhibitions of 2022. A Movement in Every Direction: Legacies of the Great Migration focuses on the impact of The Great Migration (1915-1097) today through new works by 12 Black artists. The Great Migration is a period in which more than six million African Americans left the South seeking safer, more prosperous lives in Northern and Western cities.
Brionne, born in New Orleans, and now based in Detroit, weaves photographic images of her forebears who did not leave the American South into tapestries adorned with rhinestones. Brionne continues to explore her hand-embellished digital tapestries while completing her MFA at Cranbrook Academy of Art.
The additional 11 artists included in the exhibition are Mark Bradford, Zoë Charlton, Larry W. Cook, Torkwase Dyson, Theaster Gates Jr., Allison Janae Hamilton, Leslie Hewitt, Steffani Jemison, Robert Pruitt, Jamea Richmond-Edwards, and Carrie Mae Weems.
A Movement in Every Direction was first on view at the Mississippi Museum of Art and is currently on view at the Baltimore Museum of Art through January 29, 2023. The exhibition will also travel to the Brooklyn Museum in the new year, on view from March 3 through June 25, 2023.
Read about The New York Times’ Best Exhibitions of 2022
Read The New York Times’ review of A Movement in Every Direction
Read more about the exhibition from The Baltimore Museum of Art
