This Thursday, Chela Mitchell Gallery opens Keepsake, a new exhibition by Omari Jesse exploring the quiet moments that shape Black childhood, family, and community: the living rooms, front porches, family gatherings, and everyday rituals so ordinary they’re often overlooked, and so essential they’re how we become who we are.
Through collage, Jesse reassembles fragments of photographs and memory, honoring the spaces where identity is formed. Children recur throughout the work, not just as symbols of innocence, but of inheritance: the love, humor, resilience, and cultural traditions passed down through daily acts of care.
Each piece functions as its title suggests: a keepsake. A vessel for memory. Not a romanticized past, but a record of what’s real, and what deserves to be remembered.
Join us Thursday, 6–8 PM at Chela Mitchell Gallery, 1285 4th Street NE, for the opening.