Express Newark Celebrates 10th Anniversary With Art and Events Focused on Legacy
Express Newark marks its 10th anniversary with a plethora of exhibitions and events exploring the theme of legacy, a celebration that starts October 7 and continue beyond the academic year.
The milestone will be celebrated through exhibitions, artist residencies, performances, educational programs, and community gatherings that consider legacy as a living practice shaped across generations.
“Legacy guides Express Newark’s anniversary by asking us to consider not only what has been built over the past decade, but how that work continues through the people who teach, create, collaborate, and gather here,” said Nick Kline, Co-Director of Express Newark.
“Grounded in our commitment to empowering expression through the arts, this season celebrates the artists, educators, students, alumni, and community members who have shaped Express Newark while creating opportunities for the next generation,’’ said Stefon Harris, Express Newark co-director.
Express Newark’s Legacy season builds on in its role as a third space bridging campus and community and the belief that the arts are essential to individual and collective wellbeing. Through art, design, photography, music, film, and more, the anniversary year celebrates a decade of collective achievement while looking toward what comes next.
On October 7, Express Newark will launch the season with the opening of eleven exhibitions, artist-in-residence open studios, public conversations, and live music. The celebration also coincides with the 25th anniversary of the Newark Arts Festival and the opening of Newark Arts’ group exhibition, ON PURPOSE, bringing together two organizations, whose histories reflect Newark’s longstanding role as a center for artistic production and cultural leadership.
The evening features Stefon Harris & Blackout in performance, celebrating the release of Harris’s new album, Legacy Dances. Acclaimed artist and Newark Arts Festival 2026 guest Bisa Butler will join Pulitzer Prize-winning writer and Rutgers-Newark Professor Salamishah Tillet for a special public conversation.
The Legacy season also welcomes Kimmah Dennis as its Educational Initiatives Artist-in- Residence. A Rutgers University–Newark alumna and now a Lecturer in the Fine Art Program, Dennis was among the first cohort of students to experience Express Newark.
Artist and Rutgers Lecturer RaĂşl Ayala joins SHINE Portrait Studio as Artist-in-Residence, activating his photographic backdrop installation FERVOR through performative movement, custom garments, and upcoming video work. In the Power Plant Studio, Manuel Acevedo will present The Wards of Newark, from his year-long residency with New Arts.
Exhibitions Opening October 7
The eleven exhibitions opening October 7 span jazz history, migration, protest, portraiture, and more—together offering a picture of how Newark’s cultural legacies are carried forward today.
● Laylah Amatullah Barrayn — From the First Note: Developing Icons reexamines mid-century jazz through archival photography and contemporary image-
making, considering how Black genius is seen, framed, preserved, and illuminated.
● Laylah Amatullah Barrayn — A Grandassa Sunday honors the African Jazz-Art Society & Studios and the Grandassa Models, whose Naturally shows helped define the 1960s “Black Is Beautiful” movement.
● Chantal Fischzang — ÉXITO is a large-scale neon work transforming the familiar language of an EXIT sign into éxito—“success” in Spanish—and a declaration of possibility.
● Ayana V. Jackson — The Good News is not Delivered from Mountaintops but in Clearings presents new work developed during Jackson’s residency at Form Design Studio, where she expanded her practice through sculpture and experimental fabrication.
● Shoshanna Weinberger — Between the Trees and the Thicket: A Grove of Knowledge is an immersive mural installation inspired by Newark’s Branch Brook Park and the dynamic rhythms of Newark’s urban fabric.
● Raúl Ayala — FERVOR is a photographic backdrop installation drawing on seeds, flowers, and spices from the Ecuadorian Andes to explore belonging, migration, and diasporic self-determination.
● Kevin Darmanie — Disco Calypso is an installation combining video, painting, pattern, sound, and live DJ performances to explore the continuing exchange between Caribbean and American cultural expression.
● Anthony Alvarez & Chantal Fischzang — FOCUS is a collaboration with Rutgers students and FOCUS Hispanic Center for Community Development using portraiture and design to explore legacy, family, migration, cultural identity, and belonging.
● Design Consortium & ACLU of New Jersey — I AM. YOU ARE. WE ARE. FREE TO
SPEAK. PROTEST. DISSENT. Following a year-long collaboration, this exhibition explores how design can help people understand, exercise, and protect their constitutional rights.
● Newark Arts — ON PURPOSE is curated by Adrienne Wheeler for the 25th anniversary of the Newark Arts Festival,
celebrating the artists, ideas, and cultural leadership shaping Newark today.
● Institute of Jazz Studies & Paul Robeson Galleries — Artifactual Echoes: “Jazz” inTheir Own Words revisits Records at Play, Express Newark’s inaugural exhibition, bringing jazz artifacts from Rutgers–Newark’s Institute of Jazz Studies back into the galleries for the anniversary year.
