Rutgers–Newark Partners to Present a Citywide Public Art Exhibition Exploring Newark’s Five Wards, Past and Present

Rutgers University–Newark has partnered with New Arts, a public arts studio at Express Newark, to present a citywide art exhibition featuring archival photographs of Newark in the 1980s created by the multidisciplinary artist Manuel Acevedo across the city’s five wards.

The Wards of Newark: Manuel Acevedo, which is located across each ward, will display his new images alongside older ones to capture a sense of continuity and Newark’s inherent beauty, value, and nuanced attitudes toward growth and change.

The images, captured between 1982 and 1987, reflect the city’s past vitality and current diversity, inviting viewers to remember the five wards of Newark — North, Central, East, West and South — as a place of home, community, and cosmopolitanism.

The exhibition will kick off with an opening program Tuesday, May 12, at 5:30 p.m. at 5 Linden Street in the Central Ward. Afterward, guests can attend a guided tour of installations throughout the city’s five wards, with transportation provided. The event will also include light refreshments and live music.

Curated by Rutgers–Newark professor Salamishah Tillet, director of New Arts at Rutgers and a Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing and Africana Studies, Wards of Newark draws from an archive of more than 3,200 black-and-white images by Acevedo, most of which have never been shared with the public.

More than 40 years later, and as part of his artist residency at Express Newark, a community-engaged art and design center supported by Rutgers–Newark, New Arts has invited Acevedo to return home and hold up a mirror to the city by revisiting the wards and reflecting on Newark’s rapid, sometimes disorienting and often unprecedented transformation over the past four decades.

“Rutgers University–Newark’s partnership on this project reflects who we are as an anchor institution deeply connected to Newark and deeply invested in the artists, storytellers, and communities that shape this city’s identity,” said Rutgers-Newark Chancellor Tonya Smith-Jackson.

“At a time when the city was too often reduced to harmful narratives, Manuel Acevedo documented the humanity and vibrancy of Newark residents with care and honesty,” she added. “It is profoundly meaningful that Newarkers today will be able to encounter these images throughout the city itself and see their histories, neighborhoods, and experiences recognized as part of Newark’s cultural legacy.”

Tillet, who won a Pulitzer Prize in 2022 for her work as The New York Times critic-at-large, has longed to showcase Acevedo’s photos ever since she first saw them.

“I’ve wanted to work with him on documenting his hometown with the brilliant energy and moving elegance that only a Manuel Acevedo photograph of Newark can convey,” said Tillet.

“With this exhibition, we have the opportunity to share his vision of Newark in the very same neighborhoods where he once lived and traveled, while also bearing witness to the ever-evolving transformations of our beloved city today,” she said.

The exhibition revisits Acevedo’s first sustained photography series, in which he documented the diverse landscapes and communities of his hometown — a city shaped by periods of unrest and urban renewal initiatives that tore down existing housing to erect massive housing projects.

His photographs captured the richness of neighborhood life and lore. They also reveal the political realities of residential segregation, urban poverty, overpolicing, and the complexities of the early administration of Mayor Sharpe James, the city’s second Black mayor from 1986 to 2006.

To match the tenor and scale of showcasing Newark’s development over time, the photographs will be installed as billboards, murals, and prototype monuments in each ward for residents and visitors to engage with, learn from, and see themselves and their histories reflected.

“As I archive thousands of photographs from the original Wards of Newark series, I piece together significant moments and organize my thoughts in remembrance of Newark from 1982 to 1987,” said Manuel Acevedo.

“This photo archiving process transports me to the long walks I took through the five wards — sometimes for several days in a row — to capture the complexity of my home city. Walking the streets has been and is a fundamental part of my practice, so, of course, I've started the walks again during my residency here.”

He added, “Taking this journey 40-plus years later affirms my life’s work and finds me as energized now as I was then to document the life of Newark. These images reflect our collective struggle for identity, freedom, and unity. They also remind me of how some things have changed, and others have stayed the same in the beautiful Brick City.”

Under Mayor Ras Baraka’s current leadership, the City of Newark has demonstrated a deep commitment to and deliberate strategy for revitalization by expanding affordable housing access for its residents rather than displacing them.

Public art has played a critical role in these anti-gentrification efforts, serving as a means of looking both backward and forward — utilizing the archive to anchor the present and transforming the city’s urban landscape into a meditation on memory, place, and the shifting poetics of home.

“I am excited to celebrate Manuel Acevedo’s work and the many ways he examines and reimagines community and place through photography,” said fayemi shakur, the City of Newark Arts and Cultural Affairs director.

“Public art is crucial to creating shared experiences and landmarks, sparking dialogue, supporting artists, and helping define our city’s unique character and history.”

New Arts is also partnering with the City of Newark to host listening sessions, led by artist Adrienne Wheeler and designed by Monument Lab, with members of Newark’s community to learn how residents envision public art in their neighborhoods.

The data and feedback collected will be used to produce a report that will inform the city’s public art strategy. For more information on Wards of Newark: Manuel Acevedo, please visit newartsjustice.org.