Opening Reception: Naming the Wound & Breaking the Spell

Naming the Wound & Breaking the Spell: Seeing, Telling the Truth, and Dismantling What Harms

Presented by: West Harlem Arts Exhibition 2026, a collaboration of the Centro Cívico Cultural Dominicano and Children’s Art Carnival (CAC), in participation with Women Healing and Empowering Women’s (WHEW) Beah Ripple Movement

Exhibition Dates: April 17 – May 11, 2026

Opening Reception: Friday, April 24, 2026 6:30 – 9:00pm (RSVP)

Symposium: Saturday, April 25, 2026 12:00 – 6:00pm (RSVP)

Naming the Wound & Breaking the Spell is an exhibition that respond to the layered truths, contradictions, and acts of self-definition articulated in the poem A Black Woman Speaks by Beah Richards Centering themes of truth-telling, embodied memory, racial reckoning, and collective repair, the exhibition foregrounds voice as resistance, storytelling as survival, and truth as something lived, claimed, and continually re-imagined. A community of artists are invited to engage through bold, intimate, and expansive visual responses that honor complexity, memory, and becoming. The Exhibition will showcase artists from the Kevin Taylor Collection of works and the Armand-Paul Family Collection to include works from artists Carlos Martiel, Renée Cox and many more.

With performances by El Enjambre Folclórico, a New York City-based musical band that promotes Dominican culture through traditional music, dance, and oral storytelling.

Opening Reception:

Friday, April 24, 2026 6:30 – 9:00pm

(Guests to dress in white on this day and bring flowers as an offering)

It will start with an offering to the ancestors, orishas and santos and include a street procession with music from the Hudson River to Centro Civico Cultural Dominicano ending at the Children’s Art Carnival. Featured Performance by poet Anacaona Rocio Milagro.

Artists: Jenna Arvelo, Milagros Batista, Chris Cortez, Renee Cox, Wilhelmina Grant-Cooper, Elmer Guevara, Eli Kaufman, Dillon Gardine, Zarina Khan, Carlos Martiel, Yoo Yeon Nam, Dionis Ortiz, Madelyn Rivera, Anya Paintsil. Marco Saavedra, Patrice Solomon, Starkim, Araceli Zuniga

Procession & Opening Reception Schedule

● 6:00 PM – Guest check-in and map pickup at Centro Cívico Cultural Dominicano (619 W 145th St, between Broadway & Riverside)

● 6:30 PM – Hudson River procession begins, led by El Enjambre Folclórico

● 7:00 PM – Brief stop at Centro Cívico Cultural Dominicano

● 7:10 PM – Procession resumes: along 145th St → Convent Ave → 144th St → enters Hamilton Terrace

● 7:45 PM – Procession concludes at CAC

● 8:00 PM – Welcome and opening remarks

● 8:15 PM – Featured performance by Anacaona Rocío Milagro

● 9:00 PM – Reception concludes