Cornelia’s Lounge: An Immersive Juke Joint Experience
Curated by Keshé Clay
July 19 – August 25, 2024

A photo. A family. A legacy.

It all began with a photo. A tattered keepsake of a lost time, an endless number of stories that can be spun from it.

A place in time. A space of our own. A sound, a groove, a beat, an escape. Or so we hoped.

Cornelia’s Lounge: An Immersive Juke Joint Experience is the first exhibition by Keshé Clay, a native North Lawndale curator and creator. This exhibit will explore juke joints from historical and cultural perspectives, and invite in artists, poets, and musicians to give their own perspectives and performances.

Where’s your Cornelia’s Lounge? Where were your forebears’? Where will your inheritors’ be?
Tell us your Juke Joint story — or dream.

Meet the Team

It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world.

Curator:

Keshé Clay is a curator, artist, conjurer, and proud descendant of the Great Migration. They received their B.A. in African and African Diaspora Studies and Sociology from Boston College in 2021 and are a scholar of African Traditional Religions and Black American Lesbian history. As a former Program Manager at the Haitian American Museum of Chicago, Keshé is interested in the history and preservation of cultures across the African Diaspora. Cornelia’s Lounge, named after Keshé’s paternal great-grandmother, is their first exhibition and pays homage to the cultural roots established in Chicago from their Arkansas-born lineage. As a lifelong learner, Keshé plans on pursuing a graduate-level degree in Africana studies. When they’re not working as a bookseller, you can find them studying astrology and doing readings.

Artists:

Nina T. is an artist, musician, and archive enthusiast born and raised in Chicago. They were an inaugural member of the University of Chicago Design Apprenticeship Program & are currently studying anthropology with a minor in African and African American Studies. Nina describes their artistic goal as an effort to highlight and preserve the way black history, struggle, and perseverance was documented through music.

Artist

Kennedy Free aims to create whimsical and romantic images to portray black femininity. She does this by using vibrant gouache on canvas. The work presents itself as colorful and textured. These elements come together to display daydream images that celebrate black women.

Aiyanna Smart, known as Yanna, is a Black Queer multi-disciplinary artist located in Chicago. Utilizing their background in African Spirituality and Black Southern life, Aiyanna uses their work to showcase the experience of the never-ending transformation and grief that resides within Black Femmes. Comforting other people through their own generational patterns, aesthetics, and emotions, their art is showcased as a living diary for others to indulge themselves into.

Official Website

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Tags: Aiyanna Smart, Chicago, Cornelia’s Lounge: An Immersive Juke Joint Experience, Kennedy Free, Keshé Clay, Lawndale Pop-Up Spot, Nina T., North Lawndale