Future Exhibits
Maze Tales
Maze Tales
Elizabeth Hudson
Gallery (2nd Floor Southwest)
About the Exhibit
Artist Meet & Greet: Sunday, October 11, 2026, 1:00pm-3:00pm
Watercolor with the Artist: Sunday, October 11, 2026, 3:00pm-4:30pm
“I know of a Greek labyrinth which is a single straight line. Along this line so many philosophers have lost themselves that a mere detective might well do so too.” -from Death and the Compass by Jorge Luis Borges
Mazes are depicted as difficult paths in popular imagination, but Maze Tales posits an alternative point of view: what if a maze represents a journey one decides to willingly embark upon? On another level, what if the maze is your right to opacity, as the writer Édouard Glissant talks about in Philosophie de la Relation (Philosophy of Relation)? What kind of wonder and surprise can you stumble upon when you find yourself lost with no directions other than your internal guide?
Elizabeth Hudson explores this alternative world of mazes and labyrinths through the lens of Black folklore, incorporating the natural world with both the imagined and the constructed worlds of staircases, pathways, and playgrounds. Using watercolor as her primary medium, she invites viewers to step into a world of dreams, of poetry, and paradoxically, of opacity.
About the Artist
Elizabeth Maria Hudson (b. Los Angeles, 1989) is a watercolor figurative painter from Dallas, Texas. She studied painting and drawing at Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts and has a BA in history and art history from the University of Texas at Austin. She has exhibited at Pencil on Paper Gallery, George Washington Carver Museum, Big Medium, and Martha’s. Her work is in the current issue of New American Paintings: Issue 180 West. Presently, work centers on translating the nuances of black American folklore into a visual language that focuses on womanist themes like agency, liberation, and community care. She currently lives and works between Dallas, Texas and Austin, Texas.
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Dendrofemonology: A Feminist History Tree Ring
Dendrofemonology: A Feminist History Tree Ring
Tiffany Shlain
Gallery (2nd Floor Southwest)
About the Exhibit
DENDROFEMONOLOGY: A FEMINIST HISTORY TREE RING
A MOVEABLE MONUMENT FOR WOMEN’S RIGHTS
Sculpture Installation, Artist Talk and World Film Premiere of We Are Here
At Austin Central Library: October 27, 6pm-7:45pm
Dendrofemonology: A Feminist History Tree Ring is a 65-inch reclaimed deodar cedar wood sculpture that offers a timeline of humanity through a feminist lens, mapped against the concept of trees bearing witness to history, as a new kind of monument for the 21st century that by its very nature, being made from wood and not granite, will change and evolve. The sculpture explores an important narrative about where we started as a feminist culture, how far we’ve come, and how far we still have left to go. The timeline starts 50,000 years ago, with text hand burned onto the tree ring using pyrography, documenting how society has gone from women having power in ancient civilizations to the spread of patriarchy, women securing the right to vote, and the overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022. The last entry on the timeline is “Today:” serving as both an invitation to take action and a reminder that what we do today will influence what’s recorded next.
A moveable monument by design, Dendrofemonology embodies a philosophy of adaptability, community, and universality that aims to inspire, educate, and galvanize the continued fight for gender equality while memorializing the push and pull of women’s progress. Previous installations include the National Mall in Washington D.C, where its 2023 debut installation on included a program featuring Wonder Woman’s Lynda Carter, #MeToo founder Tarana Burke, activist Dolores Huerta, and TV host Padma Lakshmi; Madison Square Park in New York City; 21c Museum in St. Louis, Missouri; di Rosa in San Francisco featuring a keynote event with Speaker Emerita of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, and most recently in Seneca Falls, NY at the Wesleyan Chapel where the women’s rights movement started in 1848, and now at the Women’s National Hall of Fame each serving as a catalyst for community action and civic conversation.
WE ARE HERE: THE FILM
In parallel to the Dendrofemonology work being created and shown around the country, Tiffany Shlain directed a 12-minute short film We Are Here. Oct 27th, 2026 in Texas and around the country, will mark the premiere of the fourth update of this film that explores both the creative thinking behind the work and shows highlights from each stop. This award-winning film has screened at film festivals in Berlin, Mumbai, Tokyo, Paris, and more. With each installation stop and art activation the film gets updated. A completely new version will premiere in Austin, Texas at the Central Library and around the country on Oct 27th.
About the Artist
Tiffany Shlain is an interdisciplinary artist, activist, Emmy-nominated filmmaker, national bestselling author, and the founder of the Webby Awards. Shlain’s practice spans sculpture, film, writing, and public activation, exploring the intersection of feminism, philosophy, technology, neuroscience, and nature. Shlain’s work has been shown at The Museum of Modern Art, the de Young Museum of Fine Art, the Sundance Film Festival, and US embassies globally. Her awards and distinctions include selection by the Albert Einstein Foundation for their Genius100 list, the Neil Postman Award for Career Achievement in Intellectual Activity, and inclusion on NPR’s list of best commencement speeches. Shlain has had multiple premieres at the Sundance Film Festival, including her acclaimed documentaries on reproductive rights Life, Liberty & The Pursuit of Happiness (2003) and interdependence, Connected (2011). Her book 24/6: Giving up Screens One Day a Week to Get More Time, Creativity, and Connection received the Marshall McLuhan Outstanding Book Award. She is a Henry Crown Fellow of the Aspen Institute. She has been writing a monthly newsletter Breakfast @ Tiffany’s for more than 30 years. tiffanyshlain.com @tiffanyshlain
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The Scattered Shards: Fifty Years After FESTAC ’77
The Scattered Shards: Fifty Years After FESTAC ’77
Moyo Okediji, Tola Wewe, Esther Delaquis-Baidoo, Victoria Erioluwa Oniosun, Winifred Otowa, Adeola Olagunju
Gallery (2nd Floor Southwest)
About the Exhibit
The Scattered Shards: Fifty Years After FESTAC ’77 is a six-artist exhibition marking the fiftieth anniversary of the Second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture (FESTAC ’77), held in Lagos, Nigeria.
The exhibition takes as its point of departure the legendary curse of Alaafin Aole, the eighteenth-century ruler of Oyo, who, before his death, pronounced that Africa would be dispersed, carried to the sea and beyond it. Breaking a vessel upon the ground, Aole transformed fragmentation into a metaphor for an irrevocably shattered world.
The Scattered Shards revisits that metaphor from the perspective of survival, transformation, and creativity. The shards did not disappear. Across Africa and the African diaspora, dispersed peoples carried memories, philosophies, spiritual systems, visual languages, rhythms, and aesthetic practices into new cultural environments. Their fragmented body healed and became beautiful in its transformation.
Exhibiting Artists:
Moyo Okediji, Tola Wewe, Esther Delaquis-Baidoo, Victoria Erioluwa Oniosun, Winifred Otowa,
Adeola Olagunju