Ongoing Exhibits
Guinea to Great Bay: Afro-Atlantic Lives, Culture, and History
We aim to abide by best ethical practices for preservation, exhibition, and public education put forth by professional organizations like the American Association for Museums. We use the CatalogIt collection management system and climate controlled storage. We regularly participate in professional workshops to improve our own exhibition practices. As a minority-led organization, we consult for other arts and culture organizations that wish to enrich and diversify their own exhibition practice and community engagement.
Inaugurated in summer 2018, Guinea to Great Bay is our bastion exhibit that showcases exciting and valuable pieces from our large collection of well-over 500 African American and African art and material culture objects, ranging from masks, household items, and textiles to contemporary photography and mixed media. We regularly rotate and include pieces from our collection as part of new and visiting exhibits.
Our collection is curated from carefully selected donations from our board members and individuals with ties to the wider Seacoast community. As part of our mission to tell the story of Black arts and culture from the unique perspective of the Seacoast, we assess the provenience of all proposed object donations - asking in-depth, detailed questions about where an object came from, who made it when and how, and who’s owned it and why - so that each object can help us to best serve our visitors, educate the public, and tell our respective story.
Celebrate the Seasons:
Holiday Traditions Around the World
Our periodic holiday show closes out the year by celebrating Kwanzaa and other African and African American holiday traditions, as well as traditions from other communities in the Seacoast. In past years, we’ve featured Turkish, Jewish, and Indonesian holiday traditions in our gallery, held holiday storytime sessions for children, and had gingerbread house-making competitions to accompany the annual show in Portsmouth Historical Society. We inclusively celebrate all faiths, spiritualities, and non-religious traditions of family and community.
Wall of Fame
Our wall of fame features black and white photographic portraits of our African American board members and members of the public who have since passed but forever left their mark on the broader Seacoast region in New Hampshire and beyond. Many of the photographs were taken by Founding Board Member Kel Edwards and part of the Black Elders of Portsmouth oral history project coordinated by Valerie Cunningham.
African American and African Studies Library
As several of our founding and current board members are educators, we maintain a large collection of hard-to-find popular and academic books by and about Black/African American and African individuals and communities, including memoir, biography, history, anthropology, children’s and young adult literature, and CDs and records. We welcome and consult with researchers, educators, and especially area K-12 teachers who want to enrich their classrooms.
