Satchel Lee (b.1994, New York, NY) is a visual artist and filmmaker whose work explores memory, legacy, and Black interior life through photography film and installation. She reinterprets personal and collective histories through the architecture of memory, using built spaces to reveal deeper layers of identity and heritage. Lee had an MFA from School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a BFA from NYU Tisch School of the Arts. Having exhibited her work both domestically and internationally and collaborated with Washington Post Magazine, Vogue Italia, and The New York Times. Where We Find Ourselves marks the artist’s first solo exhibition.

Amarie Gipson is also a Houston-born art worker, writer, and creative entrepreneur. Gipson has held curatorial positions at The Studio Museum in Harlem, The Art Institute of Chicago, The Renaissance Society (Chicago), The Contemporary Austin, and The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Independently, her writing has been published in several journals and magazines such as Artforum, ARTNews, ARTS.BLACK, Cite, ESSENCE, Gulf Coast, MUD, and THE SEEN. She created an open format dance party and community called PHYSICAL THERAPY, where she serves as creative director and resident DJ. She is also the former Arts & Culture editor of Houstonia Magazine, where she worked to bring much needed attention to Houston’s art scene. With nearly a decade of experience in the realms of fine art, music and media, Gipson built The Reading Room with a desire to share her deep passion for Black culture. It is a culmination of her professional experience and a labor of love.

In 2023, Gipson was a Lead Freedmen’s Town Research Fellow. 

Mo Nikole is a Houston-based Black Lesbian sonic curator and archivist dedicated to amplifying Black voices, stories, and legacies. Through her intentional, undiluted focus, Mo creates spaces where Blackness is remembered, celebrated, and preserved through @blkwomanmusiq, a living archive dedicated to listening to the voices of Black Women in musiq, and @blkpplchrch, a fellowship space honoring the Southern Black aesthetic through sound and community programming.

Created in 2018, the Houston Freedmen’s Town Conservancy, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, aims to protect and preserve the history of Freedmen’s Town for the benefit of future generations. The Conservancy’s role is to “Tell the Story of Freedom” by educating and engaging visitors through heritage tourism from around the world about the unique and revelatory history of this largely untold chapter of Houston’s and America’s past.