June 4 - July 29
Inheritors of Movement is a four-person exhibition featuring works made by Black artists of immigrant descent. This multidisciplinary exhibition gathers members of the Black immigrant diaspora to explore the gifts, tribulations, griefs, and celebrations that come from their family’s migration from home to home. Concurrently, the United States is enacting anti-immigrant violence through ICE. This exhibition recognizes that the violence of ICE intersects with the histories of violence inflicted upon Black Americans.
Centering Black immigrant descendents offers a unique chance to hold both communities together, build a wider coalition, and enact imaginations inspired by what we’ve inherited across movements – familial and political.
This exhibition features the efforts, loves, confusions, and dreams of bæ, Naomi Likayi, Yesmín Abduljalil, and Yaya El Tiempo – who also serves as curator. The BLACK Gallery powered by DSPDX is open by appointment only, Thursday through Sunday from 12 to 5pm. Please email the gallery at info@theblackgallerypdx.com to schedule your visit.
Inheritors of Movement is funded in part by the Regional Arts & Culture Council and the Office of Arts & Culture.
YaYa El Tiempo, Kiskeya (Detail), color pencil on canvas, 2026
Exhibition Events:
Opening Reception
June 4th, 2026, 5-8pm at The BLACK Gallery powered by DSPDX
916 NW Flanders St, Portland, OR 97209
Juneteenth
June 19th, 2026, 12-5pm at The BLACK Gallery powered by DSPDX
916 NW Flanders St, Portland, OR 97209
Artist Talks
July 2nd, 2026, 5-7pm at The BLACK Gallery powered by DSPDX
916 NW Flanders St, Portland, OR 97209
bethel geressu sishu / bæ
bethel (bæ-tell) is a Portland raised creative, a known descendant of Agaw, Amhara, Oromo peoples, who inhabit modern Ethiopia. She’s drawn to tizita (memory/nostalgia/reflection) in writing, poetry, song and visual mediums. What does it mean to live in the promise of going back home? I revisited Incidents in the life of a Slave Girl, written by Harriet Jacobs, through Isiah Lavender III interpretation. Harriet Jacobs survives in a "loophole of retreat" seven years in an attic crawl space, hiding in a pocket universe..."existing within the boundaries of another universe - a space within a space governed by its own rule" (Lavender III). I see back home as a pocket universe, a place our ancestors witnessed, a future we've imagined, a myth I should know, and land, language, love I long for.
Naomi Likayi
Naomi Likayi is a first-gen Congolese American creative based in Portland, OR. With overlapping disciplines in illustration, public art, and graphic design. The spirit of her work is rooted in self-introspection, nostalgia and heritage. Playfully dynamic, adorned in symbols, and melodically hued— Naomi is in pursuit of an exaggerated self-healed version of herself within community. Recent collaborators and exhibitions include: RACC, Portland Parks & Recreation, Portland State University, Alberta Street Gallery, Industry One Foundation and more.
Yesmín Faqi
Yesmín, a NorCal shawty, now living in Portland, OR, is a sewist, embroiderer and papier-mâché artist. She was inspired by these art mediums from receiving gifts from “back home”-mainly traditional woven baskets and clothing when someone would come back to the U.S. The array of loud colors and patterns paired with one another that, at her younger age, first saw as “foreign,” soon brought so much joy and life! Yesmín graduated with a degree in fashion design at LATTC in Los Angeles, CA. Completed an art residency at Paperhand Puppet Intervention creating and slinging papier-mâché puppets for the yearly summer show. While practicing and learning more of her culture indigenous to Turtle Island, she became awakened to ways she can preserve her indigeneity of East Africa, where she lived in Harar, Ethiopia in 2025 taking courses in the embroidery techniques.
Yaya El Tiempo / Time (they/elle)
Time is a Dominican-American artist, curator, and educator from New Jersey. They’re currently investigating what they call “cosmic romance”, or making intimate connections over gaps in space and time, through drawing, sculpture, and short-fiction writing practice. They’re a recent resident at the Independent Publishing Resource Center, where they’re working on their upcoming short story collection Phenomenomicon. Recently, they were awarded the Regional Arts & Culture Council’s Portland Arts Project Grant to aid in their first curatorial project, Inheritors of Movement. They hold an MFA from the University of Oregon. In September 2026, their work will be featured in an exhibition on black & trans bodies at Ori Gallery. for the past year, they’ve been really craving salmon.