Dear Mazie, is a group exhibition inspired by the life and work of Amaza Lee Meredith (1895–1984), the trailblazing artist and educator who became the first known Black queer woman to practice as an architect in the United States. Curator Amber Esseiva (Art History Alumni) has commissioned 11 contemporary artists, designers, and architects to create responses to Meredith’s multifaceted legacy for this show, which will be accompanied by public programs and a robust publication enriched with archival material.

Honoring Meredith’s prodigious and passionate letter-writing (as evidenced by the hundreds of missives Esseiva found in her 5,000-piece archive), the curator has invited the participating artists to consider the epistolary form as a conceptual framework for their commissions. Dear Mazie, is thus something like an exhibition-as-letter, addressed back to the subject at its heart.

Exhibiting artists: AD–WO (Emanuel Admassu and Jen Wood), The Black School (Joseph Cuillier and Shani Peters), Lukaza Branfman-Verissimo, Kapwani Kiwanga, Abigail Lucien, Practise (James Goggin and Shan James), Tschabalala Self and Cauleen Smith.

On View at the Institute for Contemporary Art at VCU from September 6, 2024 to March 9, 2025

Related Inspirations

Exhibition Views

Detail View of a wall in the Dear Mazie Exhibition showing archival research about Amaza Lee Merediths story. There are photos and text against bright yellow geometric cut outs that read
Detail photo of a wall in the Exhibition Dear Mazie featuring archival images, architectural plans, and blueprints layered on top of bright orange geometric cut outs.
A wide shot of the exhibiton Dear Mazie, showing a large scale black and white photo of her taking up the entire back wall and a translucent fabric on the right printed with some architecural drawings by Amaza Lee Meredith and acting as a divider in the space.