THE GROUND BENEATH US
​​
A Collective Inquiry from the Problems in Contemporary Art Course
January 20, 2026 – July 30, 2026
​
The Ground Beneath Us brings together a collective body of work developed in the Problems in Contemporary Art Course led by Anthony Alvarez, Director, Express Newark’s Educational Initiatives. Shaped by close looking, sustained research and an ethic of presence inspired by the practice of Laylah Amatullah Barrayn, Artist-in-Residence, the exhibition approaches photography and visual practice not as acts of extraction, but as gestures of listening, attentive to history, to place and to the bodies that move through them.
Across the artworks in this exhibition, students consider identity as something formed in relation to land and architecture, to memory and migration, to what is inherited and what is improvised. The “ground” here is not fixed. It shifts under the weight of lived experience, cultural representation, and personal reckoning. Sites become collaborators rather than backdrops; bodies do not perform identity so much as situate themselves within it. In this way, the work echoes Barryn’s commitment to witnessing, an approach grounded in dignity, patience and accountability to the spaces one occupies.
What distinguishes The Ground Beneath Us is its communal authorship. Developed through shared critique, dialogue and experimentation, these works speak not only as individual statements but as collective inquiry into how representation changes when artists commit time, vulnerability and care. Together, the works form a rhythmic conversation between stillness and movement, certainty and change.
This exhibition invites viewers to slow down, to notice where they are and to feel the pulse of presence beneath their feet, the ground we stand on, move through and carry with us.
​
​
EXHIBITING ARTISTS:
​
1. Lauren Surrency
2. Rayshell Goff
3. Benjy Shaulov
4. Diana Jimenez
5. Michell Jimenez
6. Silvia Wiggins
7. Ellen S. Bayas
8. Florence Sobanjo
9. Camilla Zarzuela
10. Jammie Senario
11. Imani White
12. Israel “Izzy” Rodriguez
13. Leonardo Silva Serra De Paula
14. Giovanna Simpson
15. Samuel Akintaju
