First Floor Features:
- The St. Louis Art Gallery – A vibrant collection showcasing the work of local St. Louis artists.
- Humans of STL by Lindy Drew – A powerful visual narrative that centers first-person stories and photographic portraits, featuring people and places throughout St. Louis.
- The Confluence Tarot by Simiya Sudduth — An exploration of the histories, cultures, systems, institutions, landscapes, and diverse living beings of the Mississippi River watershed: past, present, and future.
- Indigenous History of St. Louis by Gonz Jove, Esthela Mamani, and Elena Jove – An exploration of St. Louis’s deep, often overlooked Indigenous heritage, celebrating the Indigenous peoples of the Americas and their enduring connection to our shared earth.
- The 2024 Housing, Land, and Justice Artist Fellows Art Gallery – A showcase of nine artists and culture bearers from across the nation to envision a just, multiracial society where communities of color thrive. Funded by the JPB Foundation.
- Shattering Justice & Re-Making the Muslim Threat: A Visual Timeline of the War on Terror by the Muslim Counterpublics Lab.
Art Gallery
Brock Seals
Brock Seals is a multi-faceted artist, whose creativity spans many mediums, including rapping, songwriting, painting, and design. His work has captured the attention of many, including the likes of Erykah Badu, Dapper Dan, Nipsey Hussle, and most recently the St. Louis Cardinals. Brock’s work compliments the historic city of Saint Louis and he has painted several murals throughout the city from the Delmar Loop to Downtown. Brock draws inspiration from his surroundings and experiences to create timeless art that resonates with the everyday viewer. He aims to create change and give hope through his art and wants his work to serve as a reminder that the only thing more boring than a blank canvas is a blank mind.
Taishona Carpenter
Taishona Carpenter (Portland, OR) is a conceptual visual artist, organizer and community archivist with a passion for social impact in the realms of art and civil rights. Her work allows her to intersect two passions, art and civil rights by utilizing critical research to facilitate dialogues around art in relation to current social movements. She is the founder of Compose Yourself Magazine, an independent online publication spotlighting music, culture and social justice. Taishona is also currently the Board President of Don’t Shoot Portland, a community-based advocacy nonprofit and Director of The Black Gallery, an experimental arts space in downtown Portland.
Simiya Sudduth
Based in St. Louis, MO
Simiya is a Black + Indigenous (Choctaw + Chickasaw) mother, multidisciplinary artist and art educator. They maintain a fluid creative practice that primarily manifests in the realm of public art, and social practice. Their work explores the intersections of healing, ecology, social justice, and spirituality. Simiya’s expansive creative practice ranges from digital illustration, designing and painting murals to experimental sound healing performances.
Artist/Practice Statement — I am a mother, artist, and educator. My multidisciplinary creative practice manifests in the forms of large-scale public murals, illustrations, paintings, experimental sound healing performances, and other forms of public art and social practice work. My practice serves as a provocation for both personal and collective healing. I believe that art serves as a unique form of translation for the human experience. I view the very act of creation as sacred within itself. I view my role as an artist as a sacred storyteller, translator, messenger, and creator of cultureWithin my practice, I explore the concepts of healing, spirituality, justice, the landscape and joy. The cards + illustrations featured in the 2024 Facing Race Conference are part of my ongoing tarot card-based illustration series: The Confluence Tarot. Within The Confluence Tarot, I explore the histories, cultures, systems, institutions, landscapes, and diverse living beings of the Mississippi River watershed: past, present, and future. This work is heavily inspired by the iconic/classic Rider-Waite-Smith tarot card deck. This work, alongside the rest of my creative practice, serves as an offering to the Land, Ancestors, and Beings within the spaces of the great Mississippi River.
Lawrence Kyere
Lawrence Kyere was born in Akim Oda, Ghana in 1995. He received his BFA in Fashion Design and Textile Education from the University of Education Winneba, Ghana in 2021. He moves to the United States of America in August 2023, where he is currently in his first-year pursuing Master of Fine Art in Textiles at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville.
Artist Statement
In aligning my artistic practice with activism, I seek to dismantle uncomfortable structures, challenge stereotypes, and promote unity and empowerment. My work is a call to action, inviting individuals to engage with pressing social issues and join the collective effort towards positive change. Through the intricate and vibrant medium of textile collage, I aim to weave together the narratives, traditions, and cultural heritage of Africa.
By capturing the essence of historical moments, figures, and events through various artistic mediums, I aim to honor the legacy of our ancestors and illuminate the often-overlooked aspects of our collective heritage. My artistic practice is rooted in a deep appreciation for the oral tradition and the power of storytelling in African culture. I am dedicated to using art as a tool for social change and activism, emphasizing the transformative potential of creative expression in addressing pressing societal issues.
Chassidy Tiner
Chassidy Tiner is a multidisciplinary artist. She was born and currently resides in St. Louis, MO. Her art is influenced by her life experiences and humanitarian mindset.
Artist Statement
“Just don’t call me strong,” I will forever go by that statement. Before creating a piece I think of my experiences and how everyone around me has a story to share. I grab the nearest pen and paper and doodle any and everything that comes to mind until something stands out, and then I go to work. Through my artwork I want to highlight adversity behind success. While experiencing tough challenges, I discovered a new way of communication and commitment. Giving up has never been an option, but it is always a thought. I want my creations to illustrate the extension of struggle and the beauty that lies within. We emerge, sustain, and remain solid.
RottenCorr
In 2020, I took a risk at quitting my job as a Police Officer and pursued my career as a full time Artist. My physical and mental health were being impacted by the job. Prior to resigning, I would paint as a side job, but long work hours made it very difficult to complete any artwork. I expressed my desire to pursue my artwork fulltime to my wife and she encouraged me to resign, but I was afraid. My wife was also pregnant at the time, but I decided to take a risk on myself, so that I could provide a better life for my family. Since then, I've built my brand, RottenCorr Art, in which I specialize in paint on canvas. I also create digital art, murals, etc. My art is bold, bright, and whimsical. I also have a YouTube channel where I document each creative process. I try to inspire and encourage my followers to pursue their dreams. It may seem scary to take risks, but when passion meets purpose and hard work, success will follow. I enjoy being a creative and inspiring people every day with my talents.
Gonz Jove
Gonzalo “Gonz” Jove is a muralist and sculptor with a remarkable career spanning over three decades. Hailing from Bolivia, his artwork has earned global recognition, adorning prestigious venues such as the SIUE Art & Design Building, Better Family Life, Washington University, STLCitySC Downtown St Louis, and various others, including private collections worldwide. Jove’s artistic passion finds its zenith in mural creation, which he perceives as a potent means of storytelling. His creative process involves extensive research, enriching his understanding of human experiences and our world’s intricacies. Murals, for Jove, serve as intricate expressions of societal complexities, fostering dialogues on social, cultural, and occasionally controversial themes, thereby nurturing a collective social conscience.
Through unwavering dedication, Jove has transformed his lifelong dream of being a full-time artist into reality. Presently based in St. Louis while also maintaining a residence in La Paz, Bolivia, his commitment to both locales manifests in his ongoing mural projects and his proactive involvement in community education and engagement.
Jove’s influence extends beyond his artistic endeavors; he is equally revered as an educator and community leader. Beyond his studio walls, he actively participates in seminars and lectures in both St. Louis and La Paz, sharing his expertise and kindling others’ passion for mural art. Moreover, Jove channels his artistry to stimulate social awareness, shedding light on contemporary and historical injustices. His dedication to education is evident through his decade-long involvement in after-school programs, where he imparts knowledge on contemporary issues and fundamental art principles. Jove’s innovative teaching approach amalgamates math, science, and art, instilling in his students a holistic understanding of creativity’s role in problem-solving.
Beyond his artistic contributions, Jove’s commitment to fostering critical thinking and artistic expression solidifies his standing as a revered figure in contemporary art. His indelible mark on the artistic landscape and the communities he serves underscores his profound impact and enduring legacy.
Billie Allen
Artist Billie Allen was unjustly imprisoned for a crime he did not commit and has spent the last 26 years of his life in prison, on Federal Death Row. “Within the confines of a tiny 6'x8' cell where I spend 23 hours a day, art has the power to set me free!” says Billie Allen. “Creativity and the act of creation is fundamental to the human spirit, without it something within us withers.” Billie Allen refuses to wither, stay silent, or to live in the shadows while innocent. With hundreds of completed artworks, Billie Allen remains a relevant and important member of society and the art world, receiving contemporary awards, articles and exhibitions. The key to Billie Allen’s mental and physical survival is the daily practice of creating paintings, drawings, collage, mixed-media, and interactive installation pieces with outside artists in exhibition spaces. Billie Allen’s artwork masterfully engages the viewer with his personal story of innocence, injustice, systems of power and corruption, contemporary superheros and the use of historic events and Afro-futurism. “The act of creation gives me the ability to thrive in response to injustice.” Showing nationally and internationally Allen’s skilled hand, unbridled spirit, and provocative compositions have proven to break down walls and connect humanity. Innocent of the charges, Allen’s artwork and process is his tool for liberation, restoration and resilience.
Artist Statement
The Art of Innocence: An Artistic Rebelution
“Rebelution” is the term artist Billie Allen uses to depict his work on canvas, paper, boards, or whatever materials are available to him for self-expression and creation. Allen’s artwork is more than just painting and sculpture, it is a social practice that uses poetry, storytelling, healing, and meditation to convey personal and universal narratives of truth, triumph, liberty and loss. Allen’s artwork expresses his INNOCENCE and, more so his tireless fight for freedom and justice while evolving his humanity and spirit. “Silence is not an option!” says Allen, “My artwork is intended to be provocative, passionate, raw and a force to be reckoned with – so at the moment of engagement these prison walls come tumbling down.” The creation process and exhibition of Billie’s artwork allows for a powerful interactive and sometimes intimate dialogue and sharing of internal and external space.
Taking on subject matter like Emmett Till, surveillance, personal liberation, power constructs and the justice system, Allen has created hundreds of compelling pieces: from illustrated graphic novels to large-scale textured collages, diptychs, and triptychs. “I work with my hands, brushes, pallet knives or anything I can find to excavate the landscape of my mind. Sometimes what surfaces is turmoil, at other times courage, calmness, or resilience. Painting, drawing, sculpting and writing is how I channel and convey my experience of living in the shadows of death and despair and it is also what gives me liberty, healing and hope.”
Quintana Chatman
My artwork originates from everything that is within me. With different social topics, emotions, memories, and the people that surround me, I translate all of that into all of the different mediums that I use. Not only does this show a life filled with joy, sadness, anger, etc., but how I view the world surrounding me.
Autumn Breon
Autumn Breon is a multidisciplinary artist who investigates the visual vocabulary of liberation through a queer Black feminist lens. Using performance, sculpture, and public installation, Breon invites audiences to examine intersectional identities and Diasporic memory. Breon imagines her work as immersive invitations for the public to join in the reimagining and creation of systems that make current oppressive systems obsolete. Breon has created commissions for Target, Art Production Fund, Frieze Art Fair, and the ACLU of Southern California. Breon’s performance history includes Hauser & Wirth, the Walt Disney Concert Hall, and the Water Mill Center. She is an alumna of Stanford University where she studied Aeronautics & Astronautics and researched aeronautical astrobiology applications. Breon is a recipient of the Crenshaw Dairy Mart Fellowship for Abolition & the Advancement of the Creative Economy and the Race Forward Fellowship for Housing, Land, and Justice.
Charlyn Magdaline Griffith-Oro
Charlyn Griffith-Oro founded Wholistic.art in 2008, a creative agency producing projects focused on liberatory practice, interrogating the balance of personal contemplation and collective action.
Charlyn leans into archival research to celebrate, uplift, and imagine new Black and Indigenous worlds. They are an award-winning multi-media artist, environmentalist, and birthworker. They have produced exhibitions, events, and mutual aid brigades that demand social justice and honor Black radical traditions. From land stewardship to film making they are forging a path toward a safe sustainable future for Black, queer, and trans people of color.
As a British immigrant with Caribbean heritage, Charlyn’s work blends historical research and profound genealogical studies. Their enduring socially engaged project, The Free Brunch Program (FBP), has been a vehicle for sharing food traditions while investigating the importance of radical generosity to survival. Additionally, their latest sculpture-oriented work, “A Provenance” (“AP”), incorporates cowrie shells—an undervalued currency, symbol of pre-colonial civilizations, and revered tool of spiritual practitioners worldwide. Everyday objects serve as markers of time and memory, while the cowrie embellishments are the imprints of those who have held and utilized them. This growing collection preserves the stories of Black Indigenous people that have remained hidden in archives and museums. Through unearthing documentation and recalling oral histories, these artifacts become voice to those forgotten or excluded from the historical narrative. “AP” presents a data visualization that engages the viewer’s sense of sight, while FBP stimulates the olfactory system—both tactile experiences aimed at healing the memory loss inflicted by colonization. Their commitment to documenting Black life extends to filmmaking, and their short film “The Aunties” made its world premiere at Philadelphia’s BlackStar Film Festival in 2023. Charlyn is completing two fellowships this year with the Queer Women of Color Media Arts Project’s Critical Juncture Fellowship and Race Forward’s Land & Housing Justice Fellowship.
Lauren Williams
Lauren Williams (she/they) is a Detroit-based designer, researcher, and educator who works with visual and interactive media to understand, critique, and reimagine the ways social and economic systems distribute and exercise power over Black life and death. She currently teaches in the University of Michigan’s Taubman School of Architecture and Urban Planning + the Digital Studies Institute. Going forward, she’s finding ways to align her capacities with revolutionary movements that build toward different socioeconomic systems entirely and usher in new dimensions of power and freedom altogether.
Brian Ellison
Brian Ellison is a Houston-based conceptual artist whose work centers on expanding Black male access to the full emotional spectrum as a form of artistic practice. With an MFA from the University of Houston, Ellison explores cultural misconceptions such as emotional inaccessibility and one-dimensional expressions. His multidisciplinary approach, including performance art, captures the complexities of the Black experience—touching on gentrification, the physical and emotional toll on Black bodies, and the resilience, love, and solidarity within Black communities.
Anu Yadav
Anu Yadav is a theater artist, facilitator, and cultural worker dedicated to poor people’s organizing, economic justice, and liberation. For over two decades, she has created solo and collective theatre work as vehicles for public dialogue on housing, healthcare, and poverty. Her work was featured in the documentaries CHOCOLATE CITY and WALK WITH ME, as well as media outlets such as The Washington Post, The Crisis, and MTV. She was the 2019-2020 inaugural Creative Strategist Artist-in-Residence at the LA County Department of Mental Health. She is a Leadership Circle member of the Center for Performance and Civic Practice, a Senior Civic Media Fellow at the Annenberg Innovation Lab at University of Southern California, 2024 Race Forward Housing, Land, and Justice Artist Fellow, and a 2023-2025 Dramatist Guild Foundation Catalyst Fellow.
As a facilitator, she applies arts-based tools for dialogue in a variety of community, civic, and organizational settings towards visioning, strategic planning, community engagement, team-building, and institutional change. Partners include the Excessive Wealth Disorder Institute, Institute for Policy Studies, United Workers, the National League of Cities, and the state of Kansas Department of Commerce. She is a member of the Actor’s Equity Association, Dramatists Guild, We Cry Justice Movement Arts Collective at the Kairos Center for Religions, Rights, and Social Justice, and the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival. She is a graduate of Bryn Mawr College and holds an M.F.A. in Performance from University of Maryland, College Park. She is currently developing WE THE POOR, a musical.
Ino Adjani Kodjo
Ino “Odd Johnny” Kodjo is an ogbanje psycho spiritual surrealist, alchemical painter and musician. His works entitled DreamLand are meant to study and sort of spotlight the intrinsic relationships between love, death, grief, psychosis of human nature, decolonization, and the dream time. Can healing be found in the valleys connecting these feelings/spaces in the body? In the earth?
Kodjo takes to alchemical symbols as a sort of Time Machine through his works. This practice started shortly after Kodjo was assaulted while working as a painter in Portland, Oregon and suffered from Prolonged memory loss as a result.
“With my schizophrenic mind, I am able to find more connections between things that others don’t see. I can use ancient symbols to connect to personal memories, those connect to dreams. Dreams connect to a higher or collective source of consciousness. There are shaman even, who track dreams that reoccur in the same geographic locations over time. What would you do if you found your own?And you recognized it, some faint call in the wind from long ago.
Dreamland is exactly this. It stands as its own boisterous yet delicate command for reconnection, reclamation and restoration of innocence, peace and natural magic. For everyone, but especially for the Black/African diaspora.
To connect to one another this way is to connect to ourselves. To connect to ourselves is inherent reconnection with the natural world around us. I dare us all to take a step further into my mind: from its slimey hellmouth to the peak of honey suckle mountain. I once was a man with no memory at all. Now I have so many. I am so many dreams at once. It was my own nature that saved me. It’ll be yours too.
Lindy Drew
After receiving a biology degree at the University of Arizona and studying at the International Center of Photography, Lindy traveled and worked through Latin America as a photojournalist. She then graduated with master’s degrees in social work and public health from the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis, where she co-founded Humans of St. Louis. She has since led the team to produce visual stories and self-publish their first book representative of larger community conversations and development in the St. Louis region.
Artist Statement
I always know I can grab my camera, hop on my bike, hit the streets, and meet people in St. Louis willing to share a part of their lives with me and you. It doesn’t matter where. As I ride along, I gauge if someone’s willing to talk. Not everyone is, but surprisingly, most welcome my questions, have a chat, and are down to get their portrait taken.
An interview can last 10 minutes or over an hour. Some stories roll right off the tongue, others eventually get back on track after twists and turns. However they unfold, I want the audience to feel what I felt — the honesty, the heartache, the hilarity — the moment a stranger communicates something only they can because only they have lived it.
In a city carved into distinct neighborhoods, where streets often divide more than connect, and blighted buildings seem to scream KEEP OUT and DANGER, it’s typical to pass judgment on parts of St. Louis considered “good” or “bad,” “safe” or “dangerous.” Yet, what’s most telling about the character of this city is when I wander through it, talking to anyone who takes the time to talk to me. Every time I approach someone new, my focus is on getting past niceties and clichés to genuinely get to know who someone is as a human being.
Humans of St. Louis (HOSTL) is a mix of storytelling, documentary photography, and community-engaged art. At its simplest, it’s the practice of inviting someone to feel comfortable enough to tell their story and then listening so they feel heard.
When discussions light up the comments sections, opinions unfold, or resources pour in, it’s clear there are even more layers beyond “HOSTLing” than simply talking to a stranger. It’s witnessing the immeasurable impact that unfolds. It’s connecting within and between our communities. It’s celebrating our similarities despite our differences. We try to model how anyone can have similar interactions, like the ones that keep growing our site. So, if reading a photostory acts as a mirror, maybe we all learn something new about ourselves.
Lindy Drew, MPH, MSW
HOSTL co-founder, lead storyteller, and author
Muslim Counterpublics Lab
On the anniversary of 911 and throughout the year, we are urged to never forget the victims of the attacks in 2001 by uplifting their stories through memorials, museums, and events. At the same time, Muslim and Muslim American victims targeted in the aftermath and as a direct result of the 911 attacks and the never-ending war on terror, are rarely ever acknowledged or mentioned.
This exhibition was born out of the desire to construct and preserve historical memory of the violence that the US’ war on terror has systematically wrought on Muslim and Muslim American communities across the globe. In curating this exhibition, we focused on identifying pivotal laws, policies, and significant events post 911, through Muslim eyes, voices and experiences that have resulted in monumental levels of Muslim suffering. Leveraging powerful imagery, the exhibition chronicles the war on terror for each year that has been in existence, creating a foundation to conceptualize and construct the totality of the war’s impact on Muslims. While it is meant to be as comprehensive as possible, it is an ongoing project, not only because the war’s end remains nebulous, but because of how much secrecy has surrounded it. It is our hope that this exhibition will serve as a robust political educational tool that will continue to be a resource long after and hopefully when the war on terror is dismantled and abolished. This exhibition was inspired by and created for the pursuit of justice for Muslims, justice that is long past due.
Gabriel Jehu
Dominican artist based in New York, illustrator, muralist, and creative director, specialized in the development of comics and graphic novels, animation, and concept art for cinema. Author of graphic novel Palma Sola “Liborio Mateo the origin” winner of the bronze medal in the International Manga Award 2020. Art instructor with 5 years classroom experience.