Sacred Imagination in Wall to Wall
2026-06-03 12:00 - 12:30 (America/Chicago)
Drop by the Birmingham Museum of Art for a midday ArtBreak with Viola Ratcliffe as she explores the presence of surreal and sacred imagery in Wall to Wall. Using Antoine Williams’s mural The Harvesters as a point of departure, Ratcliff examines how Black artists create space for spiritual imagination and interior worlds through their practice. Drawing from Zora Neale Hurston’s reflections on Mother Catherine Seals, she weaves connections to the work and legacies of Joe Minter, Harriet Powers, Erin Mitchell, and the writings of Imani Perry.
Viola Ratcliffe is an arts administrator, educator, and quilt historian and serves as Senior Director of Creative Enterprises at Create Birmingham. A native of Montgomery, Alabama, she holds a B.A. in Art History from the University of Alabama and an M.A. in Art History from Bowling Green State University. With more than a decade of experience in the creative sector, she has worked with institutions including the Birmingham Museum of Art, Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, the Troy University Rosa Parks Museum, Minnetrista Museum and Gardens, and Bib & Tucker Sew-Op. As a quilt historian, she preserves and shares fabric narratives of resilience, identity, and activism to inspire dialogue and strengthen collective memory.

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Disruption!
2026-07-08 12:00 - 12:30
Visit the Museum for a midday ArtBreak with Curatorial Assistant Hina Zaidi as she introduces Disruption!, an exhibition that examines how artists challenge expectations, question established norms, and expand ideas of what art is and what art can do. Drawing from works in the Museum’s permanent collection, Zaidi explores how disruption operates across media, from visual experimentation to acts of resistance, inviting viewers to look beyond the surface and engage more deeply with meaning, context, and perspective.
Through works by artists including Roy Lichtenstein, Ray K. Metzker, Glenn Kaino, M. Claudia Bernardi, Khaled Hourani, Alison Saar, Islam Aly, and Michelle Erickson, the exhibition highlights disruption as both a visual strategy and a conceptual framework. Rather than offering definitive answers, these works pose critical questions, connecting past and present moments of challenge, protest, and reexamination, encouraging viewers to reflect on their own assumptions and role within a broader social landscape.

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Image caption: Glenn Kaino (born 1972), Bridge (Section 1 of 6), 2014, fiberglass, steel wire, and gold paint, 28 × 36 in. (71.1 × 91.4 cm). Collection of the Art Fund, Inc. at the Birmingham Museum of Art; Purchase with funds provided by members and friends of the Collectors Circle for Contemporary Art, AFI.6.2016
