Join us Monday, June 19 with FREE ADMISSION all day as we celebrate Juneteenth!
The PMA will offer FREE admission from Saturday, June 17 through Monday, June 19 in celebration of Pride month and Juneteenth. Join us for special programming to celebrate these holidays and our community!
10 a.m. to 1 p.m.: Freestyle Mark Making happening outside in front of PMA (weather depending); if inclement weather, we will move inside
Join artist Kevin Xiques as the PMA celebrates and honors Juneteenth through all-ages expressive art making. Turn your freestyle marks into abstract artwork! Collaborate with Kevin on a large-scale artwork and create your own artwork using various lines, colors, forms, and shapes. Learn about Kevin’s approach to the painting process and explore your own ways of letting your creativity flow.
My name is Kevin Xiques and I am a self taught artist based in Portland, ME. My work is an embodiment of past memories, present emotions, and future desires. Without a theme or plan, I explore both the discovered and the unknown. I work abstractly because it provides me with the utmost freedom, which I find essential in uncovering the things I have yet to see or feel. My intention is to always stay curious and let optimism guide me.
2-3 p.m. in the Auditorium: Wade in the Water: Black Bodies Reclaiming our Connection to the Water Panel Discussion
This free program unpacks stereotypes, tropes, and bias about Black people and their relationship with water. Artist Athena Lynch, outdoorsman Alex Obregon, Seth Goldstein of Atlantic Black Box, and sailer Brad Hughes lead a discussion about the complicated history of water, stereotypes, and Black communities in America. “Everyone knows the trope that Black people can’t swim,” shares Lynch. “A simple Google search will determine that to be untrue. However, there is a reason as to why Black people and water or swimming or boating seem unusual in a sentence together, especially when we unpack the violent history of Black people and our association with water.” The panelists will have an engaging discussion about the inclusion of Black people across water activities, industries, and sport.
Athena Lynch is a trans-disciplinary artist whose work shifts narratives, bridges sculpture, communal/immersive installation, placemaking/ cultivating spaces and redefining connectedness. Her practice refutes preconceived Blackness. Her work chronicles memories and ancestral spirituality through video, textiles, sculpture, and site-specific engagement to build a counter-narrative of monolithic Blackness. These visual narratives assert a presence against an otherwise erasure from the white-centered narrative. Her work centers Black bodies and African diasporic perspectives by addressing the past and present. Athena utilizes Sankofa, the Ghanaian principle of, return and get it, which governs this work. She uses her work to speak to all people in an effort to relay the message that Blackness is not a rigid construct. Contrary to the narrative of the collective history of slavery, the media, and employed media smear campaigns of black bodies. Her work tells these stories to acknowledge the past in order to move forward. Athena’s artistic practice is intertwined with activism and community organizing. Since 2020, she has organized a Juneteenth Celebration in downtown Portland, Maine for three consecutive years. This annual event bridges art-making, education, and history in a social space. She also virtually mapped all the Juneteenth events across the state of Maine bridging all the events together as a collective.
Originally from Costa Rica, with an outstanding background as a professional guide and over 20 years of experience in the service industry, Alex Obregon’s natural outdoor skills in addition to his love for wild places come to find a perfect combination for fishing and adventure in Northern Patagonia as well as in the bays and rivers of Mid Coast Maine...a CONFLUENCE of passions. When not exploring out of the ordinary rivers Alex calls home Newcastle Maine, where fishing for STRIPED BASS fill most of the summer until STEELHEAD season comes in the fall on the North California's KLAMATH river.
Seth Goldstein received his bachelor’s degree in European History from the University of California at Santa Cruz and his master’s degree in World History from Northeastern University. His research interests include the historic North Atlantic fishery, global piracy, New England shipwrecks and lighthouses, the trans-Atlantic slave trade and the Vietnam War era counterculture. He is a member of the Atlantic Black Project; a grass roots non-profit that examines Maine and New England’s marginalized history and the regions complicity with the economics of enslavement. Seth is the Director of the Cushing’s Point Museum at Bug Light Park and is the Director of Development for the South Portland Historical Society.
Originally from the Midwest, Brad Hughes returned to Maine in 2019 to be close to the ocean. He operates a motor coach bus and has experience flying a Boeing 737 plane simulator and sailing. Brad enjoys being on the water in his 35 foot sailboat in South Portland.
Don’t miss these exhibitions!
Outside the Frame: Todd Webb in Africa (Today is the last day it’s on view!)