At the Speed Art Museum in Louisville, artist vanessa german turns archival memory into a vivid sculptural experience with ...do you remember when you were the sky?, her debut project in the Sam Gilliam Visiting Artist Program.
The exhibition draws inspiration from the history of Black girls connected to the former Colored Girls Dormitory in Louisville, including a documented escape attempt in 1913. Rather than presenting the past as a fixed record, german transforms it into a living artistic language built from color, texture, and symbolic objects.
Her towering assemblages combine teacups, glass bottles, beads, ribbons, textiles, keys, shells, and found materials into figures that feel both ceremonial and contemporary. Works such as The Girl Who Had The Idea and The Girl Who Lit The Path suggest movement, courage, and collective action, while other pieces reflect the tension between confinement and imagination.
Nearby wall works and quilt-based compositions extend the same vision, blending community participation with layered material storytelling. A performance component, created with local collaborators, added voice, dance, and ritual to the project, deepening its connection to place and memory.
By reimagining overlooked histories through sculpture and performance, german offers a powerful model for how art can preserve memory while opening new emotional and cultural pathways for audiences. The exhibition points toward a future where creative practice continues to restore visibility, dignity, and imagination to hidden stories.
