Pedagogy Study Hall
October 9–November 22, 2025
Baltimore Maryland
United States
The Center for Art, Design, and Visual Culture at UMBC (CADVC) proudly presents Pedagogy Study Hall, a collaborative exhibition and public research project by artist Tomashi Jackson and policy analyst Nia K. Evans.
The project is the culmination of a multi-year Exploratory Research Residency at CADVC, where Jackson and Evans have reimagined the gallery as a study hall in which teaching, learning, and collective inquiry unfold in real time. Drawing on their shared history as educators in Inglewood, California in the early 2000s, they expand their classroom philosophy of resource sharing, mutual respect, and collaborative discovery into the context of Baltimore’s arts and humanities. For Jackson and Evans, pedagogy is not only a practice of teaching but also a civic activity: a process of exploring how knowledge is built, who has access to it, and how cultural infrastructure sustains—or erodes—democratic life.
Building a living archive
At the core of Pedagogy Study Hall is a growing oral history. Over the course of their residency, Jackson and Evans have hosted dozens of hours of conversations—alongside many more informal exchanges—with artists, educators, curators, publishers, and historians in Baltimore and beyond.
These dialogues trace how cycles of investment and divestment have shaped the arts and humanities for more than a century, rooted in institution-building, legislation, and acts of collective preservation. Voices include legal scholar Matt Cregor, historian Davarian Baldwin, Baltimore Museum of Art curator Leila Grothe, Maryland Institute Black Archives founder Deyane Moses, artist-archivist Savannah Wood of Afro Charities, Baltimore-born artist-publisher Kandis Williams, among many others. Together, the interviews reveal how education, cultural life, social infrastructure, and civil rights remain inseparable.
In the gallery, excerpts from these interviews appear as multi-channel video installations alongside a hand-painted timeline mural. Over the course of the exhibition, new data points and archival fragments will be added, building a working archive that remains responsive and in process—showing how the unfinished promises of civil rights–era cultural policy continue to define the precarity of the arts and humanities today.
Freedom Stories: From Boston to Baltimore
Alongside this living archive, Jackson and Evans, with designer Cierra Peters, extend their publishing project Freedom Stories: Long Format, first realized in Boston through the Bay State Banner. There, they reclaimed advertising space in the city’s historically Black newspaper to bring forward histories often absent from mainstream coverage. By inserting these texts into the pages of community press, the project makes the stakes of cultural policy legible in everyday civic spaces.
In Baltimore, the project continues with a full-page print of the 1965 legislation that established the NEA and NEH in the Baltimore Beat. During the exhibition, copies of the paper will be available in the gallery through a Beat Box—a “take what you need, leave what you can” community distribution kiosk designed by The Beat in partnership with Open Works. These boxes embody a civic model that blends journalism with mutual aid and underscores the role of community press as cultural infrastructure.
Programs: A living study hall
Pedagogy Study Hall is grounded in a robust series of public programs, all free and open to the public unless otherwise noted:
October 9, 5:30–7:30pm: Opening conversation with Jackson & Evans, moderated by Teri Henderson (Baltimore Beat).
October 10, 10–11:30 am: Visionaries and Outcasts: The NEA, Congress, and the Place of the Visual Artist in America—reading and discussion with Annie Storr and Tomashi Jackson (live) and Michael Brenson (remote). Live at CADVC or register for webinar
October 11, 1–4pm: Talk/Draw with Jackson, Evans, Michael Hunt, and Cristina Duncan Evans (Baltimore Teachers Union). DJ: M’Balou Camara
October 16, 6–8pm: Panel on Public Arts and Humanities convened by Christopher Brooks, featuring Carla Du Pree, Navasha Daya, and Nether, with Tomashi Jackson
October 30, 5:30–7:30pm: The Spellcaster’s Manual: Poetry Workshop with Ainsley Burrows and Laurielle Noel. Live at CADVC with registration required,
November 19, 12–1:30pm: Roundtable on Education History and Policy, Part II with Jackson & Evans (live), Davarian Baldwin, and Matt Cregor (remote)
November 20, 6–8pm: Dr. Meleny Thomas, South Baltimore Community Land Trust, and Lawrence Grandpre, Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle, in conversation with Nia K. Evans, Boston Ujima Project.
in Conversation with Nia K. Evans (Boston Ujima Project)
November 22, 1–4pm: Closing Talk/Draw with Jackson, Evans, and artist Eric N. Mack. DJ: M’Balou Camara
Additional events include a storytelling workshop with UMBC’s Public Stories Lab; a language and zine workshop with Shengxiao “Sole” Yu and Joyhanna Jung Yoo with UMBC's Global Asias initiative; drawing workshops with Alx Velozo; and roundtables on arts funding and public history with UMBC faculty and community partners sponsored by the Dresher Center for the Humanities, including a forum on arts and humanties cuts in Baltimore and presentation on the history of Chicory magazine led by Keegan C. Finberg. More information at cadvc.umbc.edu
Together, these events bring students, community members, and civic leaders into dialogue, extending the exhibition’s commitment to shared study and collective participation. The exhibition’s accumulation of interviews, drawings, program recordings, and archival fragments is not an endpoint but a stage in an ongoing process. These materials will grow into a book, anticipated in 2027, that extends the project’s research beyond the gallery.
About the contributors
Tomashi Jackson is an interdisciplinary artist whose work merges painting, printmaking, video, and performance with research into histories of policy, segregation, and civil rights. Her work has been presented at the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, ICA Philadelphia, the Parrish Art Museum, and in the 2019 Whitney Biennial, and is in the collections of the Whitney Museum, the Guggenheim Museum, and the High Museum of Art.
Nia K. Evans is Executive Director of the Boston Ujima Project, a member-run cooperative building solidarity economies through cultural and financial infrastructure. With a background in education and policy, Evans’s work emphasizes facilitation, access, and democratic participation. She is editor of the forthcoming Pedagogy Study Hall publication.
Program support
This program is sponsored by the Wagner Foundation, the Maryland State Arts Council, the Baltimore County Commission on the Arts and Sciences and the Citizens of Baltimore County, and the Arts+ initiative at UMBC.
About the Center for Art, Design, and Visual Culture at UMBC (CADVC)
CADVC is a leading site for contemporary art and creative public scholarship, supporting projects that integrate artistic research with civic and community engagement. Its Exploratory Research Residency provides artists the time and resources to pursue open-ended inquiries into research subjects that benefit from Baltimore or University resources, aligning with UMBC’s commitment to inclusive excellence and research innovation.
Our exhibitions and events are free and open to the public for full participation by all individuals regardless of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, or any other protected category under applicable federal law, state law, and the University’s nondiscrimination policy. If you need specific accommodations at one of our events, whether in person or online, or to experience an exhibition, please contact CADVC at cadvc@umbc.edu or T +1 410 455 3188 as soon as possible.
