As part of the Shockoe Institute Presents series, An Evening at the ICA brought artists, scholars, and community members together for live performance and conversation that explored the enduring impact of American racial slavery and the creative work of imagining more just futures. Hosted in partnership with the Institute for Contemporary Art at VCU, the evening reflected the Shockoe Institute’s commitment to putting history to work—inviting participants to learn, reflect, and act through interdisciplinary exchange and artistic expression.

Our presentation, Building the Shockoe Institute: New Directions in Public Discourse on the History and Legacy of Slavery, was moderated by Shockoe Institute President & CEO Marland Buckner. Buckner led L’Rai Arthur-Mensah, the Executive Account Director at Local Projects and the Institute’s design partner, Dr. Justene Hill Edwards, an award-winning author and associate professor of history at the University of Virginia (UVA), and Dr. Gregg Kimball, the Shockoe Institute’s Senior Consulting Historian, in a wide-ranging panel about the Institute’s exploration of the evolution and enduring impact of American racial slavery and, most importantly, ways to learn, reflect, and act in our own ways, and in so doing, improve our civic life.

Equality. Personal liberties. Religious freedom. The separation of church and state. These foundational principles are considered essential parts of our liberal democracy.  

Equality. Personal liberties. Religious freedom. The separation of church and state. These foundational principles are considered essential parts of our liberal democracy.  

Design perspectives from Local Projects, the world-renowned experiential media firm behind the National 9/11 Memorial in New York and Greenwood Rising in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

The academic rigor here is unmatched. We are telling some of these stories for the very first time.