Beyond the Whitewash began in the fall of 2020, when sculptor Shelby Head began asking new questions about their cultural inheritance of white supremacy and privilege. Sorting through boxes of family documents, Head traced their lineage from England to the planter elite who held political power in Colonial Virginia. These archives—diaries, photographs, and official records—revealed male ancestors as militiamen and “Indian fighters”, politicians, and large plantation owners. Several wills documented the transfer of enslaved people as property.

From this reckoning emerged a collection of artwork titled An Infrastructure of Silence and a collaborative project in which accomplished Black, Native, and white artists and art workers co-curate and contribute to a visual and sound-based dialogue about racism in the United States.

As a white person committed to anti-racist work, Head’s primary audience is other white people. Having spent most of their life in affluent, segregated spaces, Head understands how such environments shield white communities from witnessing the devastating impacts of racism on Black, Indigenous, and other racially marginalized people. In contrast, BIPOC communities live with an acute awareness of the colonial and post-colonial systems—legal, political, religious—that continue to shape their lives.

Beyond the Whitewash recognizes that anti-racist work must happen both separately and together. This exhibition brings together a multi-racial group of nationally recognized artists and art workers whose diverse cultural and artistic visions open a space for reflection, dialogue, and reimagining. The goal is not to assign blame, but to invite all races to examine the laws, policies, ideologies, and abuses that have shaped our nation—and to envision a future grounded in dignity, rights, knowledge, equity, and shared humanity.