This Heavenly Body: Artist Talk

THIS HEAVENLY BODY: A PHOTOGRAPHIC ARCHIVE BY SEED LYNN

CURATED BY: ASHARA EKUNDAYO

SATURDAY APRIL 12TH 6PM - 8PM

Artist Talk featuring SeedLynn, Keith Walker & Surprise Guests, moderated by Crystal Marie Young, hosted by Ashara Ekundayo, Sounds by DJ Drake Phifer

ABOUT THE EXHIBIT: Through film, photography, and installation, "This Heavenly Body" explores the significance of roller rinks as cultural and communal havens in the U.S. Midwest. At its core, the exhibition serves as a political response to the increasing closures of these sacred spaces of Black leisure and social connection across the country. Additionally, Lynn’s creative use of long-exposure photography highlights the Black skaters in natural light providing an ethereal quality making the figures appear “heavenly.”

BIO: Born in Indianapolis, raised in New Jersey, and based in Chicago, Seed Lynn is an artist-activist, writer, imagist, and archivist whose work spans film, photography, and cultural documentation. His practice focuses on storytelling as an act of resistance, using visual and archival tools to amplify marginalized narratives. His "Storyographers" method has been applied across fields such as health promotion, intervention, policy advocacy, narrative justice, journalism, and education. Whether sensually, technically, or artfully applied, Lynn views the lens as an altered state where listening and witnessing make voice meaningful and creates new space where stories find students. Lynn’s own studies concern how we remember ourselves, how that memory is imaged, and how remembrance itself, in the face of oppression, is a healing act of love and protest.

Host or Publisher Norwest Gallery of Art