Celebrate Dana C. Chandler Jr. and AAMARP Day in the City of Boston at the ICA with FREE admission on April 7, and visit Say It Loud: AAMARP, 1977 to Now. 

About the Exhibit

Founded in 1977 by influential artist, educator, and activist Dana C. Chandler Jr., the African American Master Artists-in-Residence Program (AAMARP) at Northeastern University is one of the few longstanding residency programs for Black artists in the United States. With the university’s support, AAMARP has stood at the intersection of art, activism, and community for nearly five decades. A vital outgrowth of the Black Arts movement in Boston, AAMARP was envisioned as both an artistic haven and a cultural force—providing a “living focus” on “the diverse dynamics of African American aesthetics,” according to an early program description. Conceived as a Black artist-run alternative art space, AAMARP offered more than free studio space—it nurtured a thriving hub for exhibitions, poetry readings, dance performances, lectures, films, workshops, and public gatherings. Today, the program is still supported by Northeastern University and operates as a vibrant, intergenerational collective of thirteen transnational artists whose works across media offer a rich and varied reflection of the arts of Africa and its diaspora.

Countless artists have been involved with AAMARP, either as residents, exhibiting artists, or program participants. Say It Loud presents a dynamic selection of artworks by thirty-nine artists differently affiliated with AAMARP from its founding in 1977 to the present. During this period, the history of the program has unfolded across three locations: first, at 11 Leon Street on Northeastern’s campus, then in a rented space at 590 Huntington Avenue, and finally, its current location at 76 Atherton Street in Jamaica Plain. Pieced together between archival documents and personal recollections, the histories recounted here are necessarily fragmented, incomplete, and at times contested. Say It Loud offers an in-depth look at the program through the lens of sixty artworks made or exhibited there, even as the program’s full scope exceeds any one exhibition. Tracing the evolution of AAMARP through the artists’ voices, their engagement with global artistic and political movements, and their deep-rooted sense of community, this exhibition illuminates a living archive of creative resistance, cultural memory, and artistic excellence.

Artists in the exhibition: Benny Andrews, Ellen Banks, Gloretta Baynes, Calvin Burnett, Ambreen Butt, Dana C. Chandler Jr., Jeff Chandler, Allan Rohan Crite, Milton Derr, Sharon Dunn, Marlon Forrester, L’Merchie Frazier, Tyrone Geter, Ricardo “Deme5” Gomez, Paul Goodnight, Reginald L. Jackson, Michael Jones, Shea Justice, Kofi Kayiga, Khalid Kodi, Marcia Lloyd, Vusumuzi Maduna, Bryan McFarlane, Stanley Pinckney, Hakim Raquib, James Reuben Reed, Rudolph R. Robinson, Renée Stout, Edward Strickland, Susan Thompson, Arnold Trachtman, Wen-ti Tsen, Barbara Ward, Keith Morris Washington, Don West, Rene Westbrook, John Wilson, Richard Yarde, and Theresa-India Young.

The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue surveying the program’s rich history through scholarly texts and an extensive chronology illustrated by archival materials and artworks.

Credits

Say It Loud: AAMARP, 1977 to Now is organized by Jeffrey De Blois, Mannion Family Curator, with Meghan Clare Considine, Curatorial Assistant.

Support for Say It Loud: AAMARP, 1977 to Now is provided by The Coby Foundation, the Terra Foundation for American Art, The Sandra and Gerald Fineberg Exhibition Fund, and The Kristen and Kent Lucken Fund for Photography.

The publication is supported by Wagner Foundation.

Celebrate National Poetry Month with an evening of poetry at the book launch for Evan Wang's new chapbook, Slow Burn. At this event, you'll hear readings by Evan Wang (National Youth Poet Laureate), Emmanuel Oppong-Yeboah (Boston Poet Laureate), and Ailin Sha (Boston Youth Poet Laureate).

RSVP

About Slow Burn

Persistent yet flickering, Slow Burn unveils a passionate world where love is both impossible and inevitable. Divided into three sections, Evan Wang’s debut chapbook traces the confrontation of the self through a cyclical journey of discovery and contradiction, ultimately leading to the choice of allowance: that which is made by the reader. Slow Burn is a romantic’s answer to the search for love, and the strangely comforting realization that the effects of the world mark us all.

About Evan Wang

Evan Wang (王潇) is the 9th National Youth Poet Laureate of the United States, the first male and Chinese individual to hold this title, and author of Slow Burn (Northwestern University Press, 2026), the youngest winner of the Drinking Gourd Chapbook Poetry Prize. His work appears in POETRY Magazine, The Kenyon Review, Waxwing, The Harvard Advocate, and elsewhere. Deemed a "prodigy" by Teen Vogue, Evan has been featured at and recognized by the Biden White House, the United Nations, the Smithsonian Institution, and Google DeepMind. Evan is a first-year student at Harvard College.

About Emmanuel Oppong-Yeboah

Emmanuel Oppong-Yeboah (they/he) is a Ghanaian American poet, editor, and educator living out the diaspora in Boston, Massachusetts. For six years they taught 11th grade English at Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, and prior to that served as a teaching artist at organizations throughout Boston. They have very recently (September 2023) transitioned from teaching high school English, and are currently working as a school librarian at the Joseph Lee School in Dorchester, Boston (it's a K-8!). While they miss their high schoolers, Emmanuel says the transition to working with littles, particularly kids growing up in the city they themself grew up in, has been incredibly joyful and life-giving. The pursuit of joy, and that which sustains life, is essential to their creative practice, and to their practice of living. Emmanuel's first chapbook, "not without small joys" (published in 2021 by Game Over Books Press) explores the centrality of joy as an animating force, especially in the face of human suffering. In their free time, they enjoy hot carbs, afternoons spent playing board games, and the long sigh at the end of a good book.

About Ailin Sha

Ailin Sha is a poet and writer based in Boston. Originally from Beijing, China, she moved to Boston with her mother and sister at age eleven. She attended Boston Latin School and is currently a first-year at Harvard College, where she plans to study English and Economics with a minor in Film. She is a member of the Harvard Advocate, the oldest continuously published college literary magazine in the United States, where she serves on the Poetry Board. She also plays the violin in the Bach Society Orchestra, the largest student-run orchestra at the college. In her free time, she loves to watch and discuss films, write, try new foods, and learn languages.

Experience the unique charm of Rosalita’s Marionette Puppets featuring marionettes made by professional actor-puppeteer Charlotte Anne Dore.

Performances start at 11 a.m. The event is free, but young children must be accompanied by an adult. The puppet performances are part of our arts and crafts workshops taking place on the same day from 10 a.m. - 12 p.m. The event is presented by the Boston Parks and Recreation Department.

This series is weather-dependent. Check our social media pages for updated weather info regarding this series. Follow us on social media for the latest updates on events: Facebook, Instagram and Bluesky.

Experience the unique charm of Rosalita’s Marionette Puppets featuring marionettes made by professional actor-puppeteer Charlotte Anne Dore.

Performances start at 11 a.m. The event is free, but young children must be accompanied by an adult. The puppet performances are part of our arts and crafts workshops taking place on the same day from 10 a.m. - 12 p.m. The event is presented by the Boston Parks and Recreation Department.

This series is weather-dependent. Check our social media pages for updated weather info regarding this series. Follow us on social media for the latest updates on events: Facebook, Instagram and Bluesky.