Charm City Cultural Cultivation presents: She Saw Me Coming, a powerful new solo exhibition by acclaimed photographer, author, and activist Devin Allen. On view from September 26th through Friday, December 4th, the exhibition marks a deeply personal exploration of Allen’s family, memory, and Black domestic archives.

Please join us for the opening celebration on Saturday, September 26th from 7-9 p.m.

An RSVP is required to attend.

The exhibition is free and open to the public during standard gallery hours, 
Wed-Sat, 12-6PM.

She Saw Me Coming traces Allen’s photographic lineage back to its original source: his grandmother. After moving into his family's vacant ancestral home—a space that housed every member of his family at various points—Allen discovered hundreds of family photographs spanning from the 1970s through the 2000s.


"While working on the home-making changes and going through my Grandma's things, I found numerous photo albums containing 100s of family images from around the 1970s-2000s," says Devin Allen. "That's when I realized that I have always been around photography, and my Grandma was the first photographer I ever knew."


Supported by the Working Assumptions Project Grant, the exhibition evolved into an even deeper tribute following the tragic passing of Allen’s mother during its creation. Drawing inspiration from Carrie Mae Weems’s Kitchen Table series, Deborah Willis’s Reflections in Black, and Thomas Allen Harris’s film Through A Lens Darkly, Allen expanded the project to include a poignant series of self-portraits utilizing light and the empty spaces in his mother's home where she often sat.


"The goal, of course, is to shine a light on my family, but I also aim to inspire people to share their family histories, archive our history, and protect it," Allen adds. "Our stories are important."

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