The Miracle Machine: A Black Male Artists Think Tank

Collaborators include visual artists Imo Nse Imeh, Omarthan Clarke, JaJa Swinton, Kahli Hernandez, and Xavier Merkman, with poet Aaron Joseph St. Louis, and musician Kevin D. Mason.
 
September 13 – December 8, 2023
Opening Reception: September 13, 5-7 p.m.
Artists Talk: November 2, 6 p.m. 

Led by Dr. Imo Nse Imeh, a professor of Art and Art History at Westfield State University, The Miracle Machine features five visual artists, including Kahli Hernandez, on the heels of his fascinating interactive solo exhibition at A.P.E. Gallery in Northampton, local artist JaJa Swinton, Xavier Merkman, an Art Major and rising sophomore at Westfield State, and Omarthan Clarke (Westfield State, 2007), who is both a contributing artist and curator of this installation. 

Two additional contributors include Aaron Joseph St. Louis, a celebrated local poet and spoken word artist whose textual installations and video orations contextualize the entire collection in the framework of historical and present-day narrative; and musician Kevin Mason (Westfield State, 2018) who provides a sound installation and original compositions that are braided into the conception of the exhibited artwork. 

Collectively, the artists consider themes of identity, belonging, brotherhood, and Blackness, while acknowledging the reality of spaces that allow us, or that deny us, and that ultimately change us. In acknowledging these varied histories, through image, text, verse, and sound, this multidimensional installation challenges the myth of ephemerality in Black life, signaling the Black consciousness as indelible, eternal, and miraculous.

“The chance of play, the chance of mystery is at the root of this collaboration. It is a part of us, it will grow with us, and there’s power in that.”  Imo Nse Imeh