Where We Find Ourselves | Opening Reception
September 5, 2025 @ 6:30PM — 9:00PM Central Time (US & Canada) Add to Calendar
Freedmen's Town Visitor Center: 1204 Victor St Houston, TX 77019 Get Directions
About
Where We Find Ourselves is a multi-disciplinary investigation into memory, place, and Black perception across generations, centering the historic neighborhood of Freedmen’s Town in Houston. Through photography, film, architectural modeling, and installation, artist Satchel Lee brings a forensic intimacy to the project, placing the South, and specifically Freedmen’s Town, into a microscopic focus. Lee reveals the physical remnants of a once self-sustaining Black community founded by formerly enslaved people and the brilliance embedded in its spatial and spiritual architecture.
Through documentary films, several longtime residents share lived experiences of the neighborhood. Their testimonies counter the visual archive, grounding the work in Black reality.
Installed in a restored Freedmen’s Town row house, the exhibition culminates in an immersive space reflecting domestic familiarity and sacred ritual, inviting visitors to perceive the neighborhood’s history and present anew.
Where We Find Ourselves will be on view at Houston Freedmen’s Town Visitor Center September 6–December 4, 2025.
Organizers
Where We Find Ourselves is co-organized by Houston Freedmen’s Town Conservancy (HFTC) and Contemporary Arts Museum Houston (CAMH) as part of the Rebirth in Action project. The exhibition is curated by Mich Stevenson, Project Manager—Partnerships.
About Satchel Lee
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.