Events
Lift Every Voice Exhibit Opening
Join The Griot Museum of Black History as we debut the St. Louis premiere of Lift Every Voice, an exhibition featuring 15 hooked rugs inspired by Elizabeth Catlett's 1947 series I Am the Black Woman!
Double Feature at The Griot Museum
Step into the past and witness captivating tales of resilience and redemption at The Griot Museum’s double feature screening of short films, Honorable and Eliza.
Alice M. Windom Initiative Launch
Celebrate the launch of a historic initiative for The Griot Museum and St. Louis black history!
Silver Screen Sistas: A Black Women's Movie Marathon
Honor Women’s History Month at The Griot Museum with three amazing St. Louis women who changed the way we see ourselves on the big screen!
Register To Vote
Come down to The Griot for a voter registration pop-up hosted by WashU Votes and learn about local initiatives that cound make their way to your ballots this fall.
Author and Books Celebration
As the holiday season approaches, we are excited to inform you that ABC is back for 2023! We invite you to join us for the Authors and Books Celebration 2023 and help us launch the holiday season at The Griot. The ABC event is a wonderful platform for local authors to showcase their work, connect with readers and other authors, and make the holiday season even more special.
Asaase III Rebuilt
Asaase III is the newest addition to The Griot Museum's collection. Inspired by traditional Ghanaian buildings, this monumental public art sculpture used a rammed earth technique to create the six distinct “rooms” of the installation.
Join us us for a hands-on workshop this fall that explores, in depth, the installation of Asaase III and the rammed earth technique. Design and create your own miniature rammed earth sculpture to display in a future Museum exhibit or to take home.
The Asaase Rebuilt workshop is included with regular Museum admission. Advance registration is required. Space and materials are limited so don't delay, sign up today!
Salon de Griot: Celebrating Doretha
The Salon de Griot is an experiential space where creatives, patrons, and thought partners gather in a relaxed atmosphere of food, fun, and fellowship to engage in creativity, conversation, concepts and current events. You choose the format - demonstrations, conversations, production, workshops, and more – and make it your own.
Our inaugural Salon will be a farewell celebration for phenomenal class artist Doretha Washington, as she relocates from St. Louis to Atlanta. We hope you will join us!
Spoken Word Poetry Workshop: A Sound, A Signal, The Circus
In conjunction with Nicole Miller: A Sound, a Signal, the Circus, The Griot Museum of Black History hosts a series of site-specific poetry workshops that engage with the history of their location in St. Louis. Led by poet Precious Musa and collaborators, the spoken word workshops offer opportunities to reflect on how sensory perceptions can reveal answers to questions of belonging, displacement, and erasure, exploring what it means to live in the wake of the past.
No prior preparation or background is necessary to participate. This 90-minute program is free and open to the public.
The May 7th workshop at The Griot Museum is led by Precious Musa and Edil Hassan and is designed for middle school audiences.
Space is limited to 20 participants. Register here >>
Contribute to the Black HerStory Initiative
The Griot Museum of Black History welcomes community members to self-nominate and/or share the HerStory of a Black woman who has made a positive civic, social, political, or creative impact in St. Louis.
Submissions will be considered for inclusion in an upcoming public installation by the Monument Lab Re:Generation project, which seeks to highlight Black HERSTORY through exhibition, oral histories, and public memory-making.
Facets of Love Celebration
As a prelude to the 25th anniversary of The Griot in 2022, The Griot will celebrate the unconventional journey of its Founder and Executive Director, Ms. Lois Conley. The celebration, “Facets of Love,” will feature music, poetry, tributes, and opportunities to support The Griot, Ms. Conley’s precious gift to the City.
Juneteenth Celebration 2021
Please join us for our fourth annual '40 Acres and a Mule Art Show & Sale'! We're excited to bring you local talent and showcase all of the wonderful art and artists who made this celebration possible.
Tune in on Facebook | Purchase $40 Artworks | Bid in the Auction
In the City: Cami Thomas
Join in for a creative conversation with In the City Artist Fellow, Cami Thomas, as she shares stories and experiences depicting new realities of Black identity and liberation across St. Louis and beyond. During this event, she will be joined by exhibit curator, De Nichols, to dive deeper into the processes of developing photographic works featured in the Memories of Black Presence exhibit.
This online event will take place via Zoom on Thursday, May 6, at 7:00pm CST.
Event short Link: http://bit.ly/inthecity-cami
In the City: Shabez Jamal
Join in for a dynamic conversation with In the City Artist Fellow, Shabez Jamal, as he shares collages and stories from his series of works that reinterpret familial archives. During this event, he will be joined by exhibit curator, De Nichols, to dive deeper into the processes of developing the works, exploring his own familial connections to the land and memory of Kinloch, MO.
This online event will take place via Zoom on Friday, April 16, at 7:00pm CST.
Event short Link: http://bit.ly/inthecity-shabez
In the City: Tiffany Sutton
Join in for a light-hearted and witty conversation with In the City Artist Fellow, Tiffany Sutton, as she shares stories of documenting her family, beloved memories, and navigation of loss. During this event, she will be joined by exhibit curator, De Nichols, to dive deeper into the processes of developing her photographic works.
This online event will take place via Zoom on Thursday, April 22, at 6:00pm CST.
Event short Link: http://bit.ly/inthecity-tiffany
In the City: Alana Marie
Join in for a dynamic experience with In the City Artist Fellow, Alana Marie, as she shares clips and stories from her documentary, Kinloch Doc. During this event, she will be joined by exhibit curator, De Nichols, to dive deeper into the processes of developing the film, learning her own familial connections to the city, and the impact she hopes the documentary will make.
This online event will take place via Zoom on Friday, April 16, at 7:00pm CST.
Event short Link: http://bit.ly/inthecity-alana
In the City: Nyara Williams
For her In the City Artist Talk, Nyara Williams shared her stories and experiences depicting new realities of Black identity and liberation through her body of work, "Birth of a Legend." During this event, she was joined by exhibit curator, De Nichols, to dive deeper into the processes of developing photographic works featured in the Memories of Black Presence exhibit.
In the City: Collin W. Elliott
Join in for an intimate conversation with In the City Artist Fellow, Collin W. Elliott, as he shares stories and experiences documenting familial ceremonies and rituals of grief. During this event, he will be joined by De Nichols to dive deeper into the processes of developing his photographic works.
Exhibit Opening—In the City: Memories of Black Presence
The Griot Museum of Black History and Harvard University Commonwealth Project present In the City: Memories of Black Presence, a group exhibition that centers the visual perspectives of six St. Louis photographers and filmmakers who were selected as part of their 2020 In the City fellowship program.
As this exhibition documents the artists’ individual stories of places, people, and experiences across the ever-changing city, this virtual opening event fuses their voices in dialogue to reveal connections between their creative processes and unique relationships to the land, life, and history of St. Louis.
This event will open with remarks from The Griot Museum and Commonwealth Project followed by a presentation of works by exhibit curator, De Nichols. Nichols will additionally moderate a panel conversation with the six featured artists, followed by engagement with the audience for questions and answers.
The In the City: Memories of Black Presence opening will be hosted online by the Harvard Commonwealth Project via Zoom. Please register and attend via the shortlink, http://bit.ly/inthecity-exhibit.
Listen, Look: A Reconciliatory Journey Through Black Grief and Joy
“Listen, Look" is a multimedia exhibit featuring local, Black St. Louis artists as they navigate the complexities of grief and joy.
“Listen, Look: A Reconciliatory Journey Through Black Grief and Joy” is a multimedia exhibit that centers the art praxes of Black St. Louis artists as they grapple with the complex gravities of grief and joy in their lives. The artists will be creating within, and speaking from, this emotion-ridden duality; it is our obligation to listen, to look, and to ask questions of ourselves as we engage what they say. Within that self-interrogation lies the potential for productive dialogue and action. The exhibit, then, also seeks to tap into the combined power of listening and looking with the intention to transform audience members from passive onlookers into active witnesses.
Follow us on Instagram under @listenlookinstallation and on Facebook as "Listen, Look: A Reconciliatory Journey Through Black Grief and Joy."
Team Griot Initiative
This initiative is part of a multi-faceted, long-term vision that builds upon previously initiated and ongoing internal capacity-building activities. Its primary goals include three scopes of work: community engagement, Team Griot, and facility planning.
Divided Cities Project
Since the receipt of the Divided Cities Faculty Collaborate Grant, the following activities have occurred, members of the Divided Cities lead team have met three times in person and held two telephone conversations to review, discuss, and apply the proposed work plan. Since the start of the Growing Griot efforts, the team has gained the participation of Dr. Geoff Ward, Associate Professor and Associate Chair African and African-American Studies.
Design Charrette
The October design charrette served as an opportunity to invite members of the public and local artists, organizers, and cultural thinkers to experience the museum and collectively brainstorm ideas for how it can be enhanced to usher in new programs, exhibits, partnerships, and participation across its various gallery and event spaces.
