'Clarissa Uprooted' exhibit opens at RIT gallery space in downtown Rochester
An art exhibit celebrating Clarissa Street, the center of Rochester's Black community for more than 150 years, is set to open this weekend in the Rochester Institute of Technology's City Art Space in downtown Rochester.
The exhibit, “Clarissa Uprooted: Unearthing Stories of Our Village (1940s-early 1970s)” will be on view at 280 E. Main St. through July 24. The exhibit was developed through a partnership between the Center for Teen Empowerment on Genesee Street and the Clarissa Street Reunion Committee. According to the exhibit website, it will focus on “African American resilience, agency and progress,” as well as racial segregation, displacement and the ongoing impact of urban renewal.
The exhibit will include video testimonials, interactive displays and a partial reconstruction of the stage of the Pythodd Club, a jazz club that was a cultural center of the Clarissa Street community. The beloved club, once a vibrant part of the neighborhood, closed in 1972. The building was later demolished.
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The exhibit will also feature a continuous screening of the "Clarissa Uprooted" documentary, created in 2020 by young people at the Center for Teen Empowerment. The short film served as both as a historical record of the Clarissa Street community, but also a testament to efforts to connect the past and present.
Joan Coles Howard, one of the community elders featured in the film, said she felt that the exhibit and film were vital "to help the teens gain knowledge by talking with those of us who lived there at that time."
RIT students and faculty also contributed to the exhibit, as part of museum studies and history courses at the university.
“To me, as I have explored in much of my own work as a curator, exhibitions can be forms of activism and advocacy,” said Juilee Decker, professor in RIT's history department. “In this show, we see stories that are worthy of telling, and we also have the opportunity to share and learn together from others who come to the space.”
John Aasp, gallery director of RIT's City Art Space said that part of the mission of the gallery is to become involved with community collaboration, but also noted that RIT is part of the neighborhood's history.
The RIT campus was first located downtown, near the historic Clarissa Street neighborhood, but moved to its current campus in Henrietta in 1968. University officials attributed the move, which was more than seven years in the making, to the boom in enrollment and the creation of the Inner Loop, which at the time set to dissect the campus and appropriate nearly a dozen university buildings.
On Thursday night, partners of the Clarissa Uprooted Exhibit were invited to a special sneak-peek opening of the installation.
Clarissa Street elders, Teen Empowerment, and those responsible for the exhibit were thanked and recognized for their contributions.
Musicians played Jazz selections curated to match the era on the reconstructed Pythodd Club stage while guests roamed the exhibit taking in the history lessons on display.
The exhibit, said Coles Howard, "will give former residents an opportunity to relive that time and share it with their descendants."
"Hopefully it will spark the will to return to a time more peaceful and loving and will encourage everyone of all races and nationalities to do so as they discover the truths about what was lost with the destruction of the Clarissa Street neighborhood," Cole Howard said.
Contact Victoria Freile at vfreile@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter @vfreile and Instagram @vfreile. This coverage is only possible with support from our readers.
This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: 'Clarissa Uprooted' exhibit opens at Rochester NY gallery
