Amarie Gipson is the 2023 Lead Freedmen’s Town Research Fellow. She 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.

Rebirth in Action: Telling the Story of Freedom is a multi-year partnership with Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, Houston Freedmen’s Town Conservancy, the City of Houston, and artist Theaster Gates. The first phase of the project includes community engagement, artist-led activations through a continuation of CAMH’s artist residency program CAMHLAB, an exhibition with renowned artist Theaster Gates, and infrastructure resiliency planning. The project aims to create new opportunities for local artists and research fellows, who will generate new research that connect the CAMHLAB artists and the general public to the legacies of Freedmen’s Town.

For more information, visit CAMH.ORG/CAMHLAB.

The Houston Freedmen’s Town Conservancy is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that protects and preserves the history of Freedmen’s Town for the benefit of future generations. We support community engagement, re-education, and heritage tourism.