Seattle, WA – April 29, 2021 – This May brings the launch of Murmurations, a new Seattle-wide arts collaboration spearheaded by six cultural institutions: Frye Art Museum, Henry Art Gallery, Jacob Lawrence Gallery, Northwest Film Forum, On the Boards, and Velocity Dance Center. Together, these organizations will present a series of multidisciplinary projects, including exhibitions, performances, screenings, community conversations, artist talks, and other programs co-developed with cultural organizations across the city.

Murmurations takes its name from the flight patterns of starling birds, whose survival depends on collective movement. The project emerged in 2020 from a shared need to find new structures for engaging and presenting creative practices to the public. Presentations under this umbrella will continue to unfold throughout 2021.

UPCOMING PROJECTS:

• May 1, 8, & 15, 2021: On the Boards and Henry Art Gallery present Drive-in at On the Boards, a screening series featuring work by artists who use moving images to respond to colonial mentalities and tactics, from surveillance to capitalism.
• May 15 & 16, 2021: Jacob Lawrence Gallery, Northwest Film Forum, and On the Boards present James Allister Sprang screening, held in conjunction with Lux Aeterna, a year-long platform and series of commissions that traces and troubles the currents of technical migration and image circulation.
• May – July 2021: Henry Art Gallery and LANGSTON present The Engine Room Residencies in conjunction with the Henry’s exhibition Gary Simmons: The Engine Room. Artist residents include The Black Tones (May) and Ishmael Butler of Shabazz Palaces and Digable Planets (June).
• June – August 2021: Henry Art Gallery and Jack Straw Cultural Center present Sonolocations, a three-part series of audio artworks, to be released free and to the public across the summer months. The participating artists were invited to consider the theme of place and its unique resonance throughout the pandemic, to offer directed sonic experiences for audiences to engage wherever they might find themselves. Participating artists include Byron Au Yong and Chenoa Egawa.
• June 5 & 6, 2021: The Frye Art Museum, Henry Art Gallery, and LANGSTON present a weekend of family-friendly programming. Featuring a Community Day hosted by the Frye in celebration of the exhibition Black Refractions: Highlights from The Studio Museum in Harlem, an encore musical performance by The Black Tones as part of Gary Simmons: The Engine Room residencies co-organized by the Henry and LANGSTON, and an ArtVentures workshop led by musician and educator Rell Be Free with the Henry and LANGSTON.
• July 2021: In conjunction with Black Refractions: Highlights from the Studio Museum in Harlem, the Frye Art Museum and On the Boards present a weekend of drive-in screenings programmed by Black Cinema Collective. With a view to expanding and “refracting” The Studio Museum in Harlem’s focus on contemporary art of the African diaspora, the screenings will include works from artists both in and beyond the exhibition.
• Streaming/Ongoing: The Frye Art Museum and On the Boards present a special performance by Sadiqua Iman in response to Anastacia-Reneé’s exhibition (Don’t be Absurd) Alice in Parts (January 30–April 25, 2021). As a current Artist-In-Residence at On the Boards, Sadiqua is embodying the world of various artworks by Black artists around Seattle through dance starting with Anastacia-Reneé’s fictional character, Alice Metropolis, the central figure of the Frye’s recent exhibition.
• July 17 – August 15, 2021: Henry Art Gallery and Velocity Dance Center present an exhibition by dancer, choreographer, and writer Will Rawls, held in conjunction with the Seattle Festival of Dance Improvisation. Working with a group of performers, Rawls will create a stop-motion studio where time and movement slow, offering an opportunity to interrogate tropes of linear narrative and apparatuses of visual capture.
• Summer 2021: Henry Art Gallery presents a public art project of video projections in selected sites in Seattle’s Capitol Hill and Downtown neighborhoods.
• Summer 2021: Jacob Lawrence Gallery hosts an Emergent Strategy reading group.
• Summer 2021: Henry Art Gallery and Jacob Lawrence Gallery present an audio tour of the most unusual and beautiful spaces to listen deeply on the University of Washington Seattle campus.
• Summer/Fall 2021: Henry Art Gallery, On the Boards, and Velocity present a series of performance and installation events around downtown Seattle.
• Fall 2021: Northwest Film Forum and Velocity Dance Center present selections from their annual Dance Film Challenge, which screens during NWFF’s Local Sightings Film Festival.

For the latest information on upcoming Murmurations presentations, visit facebook.com/MurmurationsSeattle or the websites of participating organizations.