Presented in partnership with Seattle Art Museum

Complex Exchange pairs Seattle community members from a variety of disciplines in a series of conversations to tackle themes inspired by the exhibition Jacob Lawrence: The Migration Series on view at the Seattle Art Museum, and An Elegant Utility at the Northwest African American Museum (NAAM).

In celebration of the 100th anniversary of the birth of one of this city’s most beloved artists, Jacob Lawrence, the Seattle Art Museum presents Jacob Lawrence: The Migration Series. Acclaimed as Lawrence’s masterwork, this epic series chronicles in words and pictures the exodus of African Americans from the rural South to the industrial North in the decades after the First World War.

An Elegant Utility articulates the layered narratives of the Green family who settled in the Central District during the Great Migration. Collected photographs and artifacts explore the ways in which socio-historical conditions produced their realities, how they navigated structural oppression, and how they continued to materialize their aspirations.

Complex Exchange features presenters and practices that reference black experience and lives of people of color from a local context.

This year’s series will include two programs, one hosted at each institution, that are free for the public to attend.

Free and open to the public; RSVP requested