The College of Charleston community and current Halsey Institute Members receive free admission to the Halsey Institute’s Opening Receptions. Not yet-Members will be asked for a suggested $5 donation. Learn more about membership here.
David Antonio Cruz: hauntme
David Antonio Cruz is a multidisciplinary artist exploring the intersectionality of queerness and race, celebrating chosen family, and honoring not just where we consider home but who we consider home. Incorporating literature, language, and sculptural elements, his work engages portraiture as a place of permanence and as a form of resistance to normative conventions. Cruz’s exhibition at the Halsey Institute will expand on his recent explorations in drawing and installation featuring new and recent work.
Cruz’s drawings are created with layers of ink washes under silhouettes of maps, foliage, and whispers of wax pencil figure drawings, inviting viewers to spend time getting to know the people and place within and revealing more with each careful look. These drawings often reappear as wallpaper and textiles in the background of his playful paintings of chosen family, which center Black, Brown, and queer bodies in the art historical canon of Baroque seated portraiture, a genre from which they were often erased. Culminating with an offering for the viewer to sit and linger, immersed in Cruz’s work through a site-specific installation, the exhibition highlights companionship as wayfinding to empowered authenticity and safe harbor in the people we choose to surround ourselves with.
Joshua Parks: Born in We—African Descendants of the Atlantic World
Joshua Parks is a southern-raised Black image-maker and cultural worker with Gullah Geechee and Gulf Coast Creole heritage. His work analyzes Afro-descendant communities in the Atlantic world, their relationship to land and water as the basis of subsistence, autonomy, survival, and collective memory, and how these elements influence social and cultural development. The Halsey Institute is proud to present Parks’s first solo museum exhibition.
In his practice, Parks puts intentional relationships and storytelling first, using image as his medium for communication. This exhibition explores the interconnectedness among communities of African descendants in the Lowcountry, the Caribbean, and West Africa through photography, film, and sounds of the Atlantic World. Bridging past and present, he presents a continuum of culture across time and space underscoring the resilience and ongoing evolution of African and Afro-descendant identities all while confronting and transcending the enduring legacies of slavery and colonialism. Dispersed throughout this global representation of shared histories, Parks will incorporate archival family photographs and artifacts engaging the viewer with the context of his personal history. This body of work makes evident the intimate and complex relationships among African diasporic communities and the fight for self-determination.
David Antonio Cruz is a multidisciplinary artist exploring the intersectionality of queerness and race, celebrating chosen family, and honoring not just where we consider home but who we consider home. Incorporating literature, language, and sculptural elements, his work engages portraiture as a place of permanence and as a form of resistance to normative conventions. Cruz’s exhibition at the Halsey Institute will expand on his recent explorations in drawing and installation featuring new and recent work.
Cruz’s drawings are created with layers of ink washes under silhouettes of maps, foliage, and whispers of wax pencil figure drawings, inviting viewers to spend time getting to know the people and place within and revealing more with each careful look. These drawings often reappear as wallpaper and textiles in the background of his playful paintings of chosen family, which center Black, Brown, and queer bodies in the art historical canon of Baroque seated portraiture, a genre from which they were often erased. Culminating with an offering for the viewer to sit and linger, immersed in Cruz’s work through a site-specific installation, the exhibition highlights companionship as wayfinding to empowered authenticity and safe harbor in the people we choose to surround ourselves with.
The Halsey Institute’s Artist Talks are free and open to the public.
Join us for the next Meet the Maker featuring Raheleh Filsoofi, an itinerant artist, feminist curator, and community advocate. Filsoofi’s exhibition will be on view at the Halsey Institute in fall 2025. Members are encouraged to attend from 5:30 – 6:00 PM to engage with Filsoofi and other fellow Halsey Institute Members before the presentation begins at 6:00 PM.
Meet the Makers are quarterly get-togethers for members at the Postmodernist level and above to meet an artist or maker and learn about their creative process within an intimate setting. The Maker is often an upcoming or past exhibiting artist at the Halsey Institute. They will give a presentation describing their inspiration, passions, process, and, ultimately, final result. Members are asked to bring “a bottle of wine and an open mind.” Check back again soon for an RSVP link.
Not a member yet? Not a problem! Find out more about the benefits of membership here.
Raheleh Filsoofi is a collector of soil and sound, an itinerant artist, a feminist curator and a community advocate. Her work revolves around themes of movement, immigration, and social activism. Clay and sound serve as her primary expressive mediums, enabling her to create diverse narratives through multimedia installations and performances. Her art disrupts the borders that exist between us and seeks a more inclusive world, illuminating and challenging policies and politics.
Raheleh is the 2023 recipient of Joan Mitchell Fellowship award, the 2022 Winner of the 1858 Contemporary Southern Art Award and the recipient of the 2021 Southern Prize Tennessee State Fellowship. She is an Assistant Professor of Ceramics in the Department of Art at Vanderbilt University and holds the secondary appointment at the Blair School of Music. She received her M.F.A. in Fine Arts from Florida Atlantic University and a B.F.A. in Ceramics from Al-Zahra University in Tehran, Iran.
Joshua Parks is a southern-raised Black image-maker and cultural worker with Gullah Geechee and Gulf Coast Creole heritage. His work analyzes Afro-descendant communities in the Atlantic world, their relationship to land and water as the basis of subsistence, autonomy, survival, and collective memory, and how these elements influence social and cultural development. The Halsey Institute is proud to present Parks’s first solo museum exhibition.
In his practice, Parks puts intentional relationships and storytelling first, using image as his medium for communication. This exhibition explores the interconnectedness among communities of African descendants in the Lowcountry, the Caribbean, and West Africa through photography, film, and sounds of the Atlantic World. Bridging past and present, he presents a continuum of culture across time and space underscoring the resilience and ongoing evolution of African and Afro-descendant identities all while confronting and transcending the enduring legacies of slavery and colonialism. Dispersed throughout this global representation of shared histories, Parks incorporates archival family photographs and artifacts engaging the viewer with the context of his personal history. This body of work makes evident the intimate and complex relationships among African diasporic communities and the fight for self-determination.
The Halsey Institute’s Artist Talks are free and open to the public.
Únanse a nosotros para una visita en español a David Antonio Cruz: hauntme & Joshua Parks: Born in We – African Descendants of the Atlantic World dirigida por la Dra. Christina García. Gratuita y abierta al público.
Join us for a Spanish Language Tour of David Antonio Cruz: hauntme & Joshua Parks: Born in We – African Descendants of the Atlantic World led by Dr. Christina Garcia, Assistant Professor at the department of Hispanic Studies. This tour is free and open to the public.
Beat the heat with a movie screening in the galleries. Join the Halsey Institute for a free screening of Summer of Soul (2021). This event is free and open to the public. Summer of Soul (2021) has a run time of 1 hour and 58 minutes.
About Summer of Soul:
In his acclaimed debut as a filmmaker, Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson presents a powerful and transporting documentary—part music film, part historical record created around an epic event that celebrated Black history, culture and fashion. Over the course of six weeks in the summer of 1969, just one hundred miles south of Woodstock, The Harlem Cultural Festival was filmed in Mount Morris Park (now Marcus Garvey Park). The footage was largely forgotten–until now. SUMMER OF SOUL shines a light on the importance of history to our spiritual well-being and stands as a testament to the healing power of music during times of unrest, both past and present. The feature includes concert performances by Stevie Wonder, Nina Simone, Sly & the Family Stone, Gladys Knight & the Pips, Mahalia Jackson, B.B. King, The 5th Dimension and more.
SUMMER OF SOUL premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, winning both the Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award.
Free For All
GALLERY HOURS (during exhibitions)
Monday - Saturday, 11am – 4pm
Open Thursdays until 7pm
843.953.4422
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