The Communion of White Dresses

Jaki Shelton Green and Monique Luck have collaborated to bring an interactive, artistic poetic installation to life, using the words from Green’s poem The Communion of White Dresses. This exhibition reimagines the tradition, symbolism, and representation of white dresses, exploring their intersection with the generational culture of white dresses and the black female body politic.

About the artists:

Jaki Shelton Green is the ninth Poet Laureate of North Carolina. Appointed in 2018, is the first African American and third woman to be appointed as the North Carolina Poet Laureate and reappointed in 2021 for a second term by Governor Roy Cooper. She is a 2019 Academy of American Poet Laureate Fellow, 2014 NC Literary Hall of Fame Inductee, 2009 NC Piedmont Laureate appointment, 2003 recipient of the North Carolina Award for Literature. Jaki Shelton Green teaches Documentary Poetry at Duke University Center for Documentary Studies and the 2021 Frank B. Hanes Writer in Residence at UNC Chapel Hill. She received the George School Outstanding Alumni Award in 2021.She serves as the poetry editor for WALTER Magazine and an appointment as the Poet Laureate in Residence at the North Carolina Museum of Art. Additionally, she has been recognized on the Forbes Magazine 50 Over 50 Lifestyle List for 2022.

Monique Luck is an award-winning international artist and muralist. She has exhibited her work frequently at galleries and museums across the US including: The African American Museum of Dallas, The South Carolina State Museum, and the Heinz History Center Museum in Pittsburgh. She was chosen to receive one of the emerging artist scholarships for the Three Rivers Arts Festival in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She was also honored to be chosen as one of the 25 honorees of the Woman and Girls Foundation’s celebration of Women in the Material World at the Carnegie Music Hall in Pittsburgh. Monique’s work as a public muralist with the Sprout Fund is featured in the PBS Documentary, “It’s the Neighborhoods.” She was also awarded a grant from the Multicultural Arts Initiative in Pittsburgh to create a permanent mural Installation in honor of August Wilson.