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: Building Family and Community in the Central District” at the Northwest African American Museum.

Free with RSVP: http://bit.ly/2m5Esp7

This year’s series will include two programs, one hosted at each institution. This program will feature David Harris, cultural entrepreneur, Jade Solomon Curtis, dance artist, choreographer, and founder of Solo Magic, and David Pierre-Louis, executive director of Kay Tita. Barbara Earl Thomas will moderate.

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.

Sponsored by Starbucks.

Image: “The Migration Series, Panel 58: In the North the African American had more educational opportunities.” (detail), 1940–41, Jacob Lawrence, American, 1917–2000, casein tempera on hardboard, 12 x 18 in., Gift of Mrs. David M. Levy, The Museum of Modern Art, © The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by SCALA / Art Resource, NY, © 2016 The Jacob and Gwendolyn Knight Lawrence Foundation, Seattle / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.