What We Carry: A Community Art Exhibition Opening Night

What We Carry is an artist-led exhibition and community activation presented by What’s Your Elephant™, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that uses the a
About this Event

What We Carry: A Community Art Exhibition & Dialogue
Presented by What’s Your Elephant™
Curated by Niki Lopez

Opening Reception: Friday, August 21, 2026
Exhibition Dates: August 21 – September 10, 2026
Location: 1310 Gallery, Sailboat Bend Artist Lofts, Fort Lauderdale, FL

What We Carry is an artist-led exhibition and community activation presented by What’s Your Elephant™, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that uses the arts to address the unspoken.

Rooted in visual art, social practice, storytelling, and collective reflection, What We Carry explores the emotional, cultural, ancestral, political, and personal weight we hold — and the ways creativity helps us name, transform, release, and reimagine what lives within us. The exhibition brings together selected works by Niki Lopez alongside invited and selected artists whose practices engage themes of identity, memory, healing, belonging, resistance, grief, visibility, ancestry, care, and transformation.

This exhibition is not only about hardship. It is also about what sustains us: beauty, breath, ritual, creativity, community, humor, softness, spirit, memory, and the possibility of being held.

As both an exhibition and social practice container, What We Carry invites audiences to consider:

• What are we carrying?
• What has been passed down?
• What have we survived?
• What are we ready to name, release, hold differently, or transform together?

The opening reception will include visual art, community reflection, connection, and opportunities to support the continued growth of What’s Your Elephant™. Additional programming, artist features, and community activations will be announced as the exhibition develops. Please check back for updates.

Exhibiting Artists

AJ Grossman, Carla Golembe, Carlisa McNee, Carlos Eduardo Plaza, Cathleen Dean, Christina Marie Reddick, Courtney Einhorn, Crystal Galindo, Damaris Ferre, DJ-Laoshi, Elijah Gabriel Ramos, Felicia Brooks, Joanne Hampstead, Kay Manin!, Kristina Tokár, Lorna Lesperance, Louis Davis, Macarena Zilveti, Melanie Oliva, Michael Anthony Clark, Michel Perez Sosa, Mila Hajjar, Moisés Acebedo, Natalya Kochak, Nicole Gómez, Niki Lopez, Norha Tamayo, Rosa Henriquez, Sheila Alexander, Sophie Wong, Stephanie McMillan, Tina Wright, Tony Brown, Vita Litvak, & Zeb.

Curatorial Vision

What We Carry grows out of Niki Lopez’s long-standing practice as an artist, curator, and social practitioner using art as a bridge for reflection, healing, dialogue, and community connection.

The exhibition is shaped by questions that have moved through Lopez’s work for years: What do we hold in the body? What do we inherit? What remains unnamed? What helps us survive, soften, remember, release, and transform?

What We Carry is a curated community art exhibition that brings multiple artists and perspectives into conversation around memory, identity, grief, care, belonging, resistance, ancestry, restoration, and transformation.

Support What We Carry

Your donation helps support exhibition installation, signage, printing, supplies, documentation, artist/program support, community engagement, and the sustainability of What’s Your Elephant™. Support for this exhibition helps keep the work accessible to the public while honoring the labor required to produce meaningful community-centered art experiences.

Donate / sponsor / share:
https://givebutter.com/wye_whatwecarry

More info on What We Carry:
whatsyourelephant.org/whatwecarry

or nikilopez.art/whatwecarry

Activations & Community Experiences

• Opening Reception — Friday, August 21, 2026, 6–10 PM
• Community Drum Workshop with Feminafrika — Sunday, August 30, 2026, 2–4 PM
• WYE Collage-Making Workshop + Community Chat — Saturday, September 5, 2026, Time TBD
• Closing Reflection: Art, Movement & Community — Thursday, September 10, 2026, Time TBD

About the Curator

Niki Lopez is an award-winning Afro-Latina interdisciplinary artist, curator, cultural producer, and social practitioner based in South Florida. Since 2008, she has curated and produced community-centered exhibitions and arts experiences at 1310 Gallery and throughout South Florida, using art as a bridge for dialogue, healing, visibility, and collective care.

Through her creative practice and nonprofit work, Lopez creates spaces where personal story, cultural memory, social issues, and creative expression can meet in meaningful ways.

https://nikilopez.art

About What’s Your Elephant™

What’s Your Elephant™ is a 501(c)(3) arts and education nonprofit founded by Niki Lopez that uses the arts to spark dialogue, promote emotional wellness, and address the unspoken.

Since beginning as a movement in 2014 and becoming a nonprofit in 2023, WYE has engaged more than 3,500 people through exhibitions, workshops, conversations, wellness-centered gatherings, and immersive art experiences. The work centers storytelling, mindfulness, mental health, LGBTQ+ identity, social justice, gender equity, cultural memory, and community connection.

https://whatsyourelephant.org