Ancestral Futures
Image by Donté K. Hayes, “Bell,” Ceramic, 2025, 14.5"x13.5"x13.5"
Ancestral Futures
Curator: Donté K. Hayes
Opening Reception: Friday, February 6th, 5-8pm
What does it mean to be a good future ancestor? How might today’s personal, cultural, social, and or environmental actions become legacies for those who come after us? This juried exhibition, curated by artist and ceramicist Donté K. Hayes, shows works that meditate on wisdom, intentionality, and the responsibility of shaping a world that extends beyond ourselves.
Artworks in this exhibition explore:
The role of ancestral wisdom and traditions in shaping the present.
Cultural memory, resilience, and preservation.
Social responsibility, healing, and intergenerational connection.
Personal reflections on intentional living and self-cultivation.
Environmental stewardship and sustainability as acts of care for the future.
Artworks as monuments or markers for the future self and community.
The influence of past memories, upbringing, and personal histories on the present moment.
Responses to collective historical events and how they continue to inform identity, belonging, and responsibility.
Cultural and familial knowledge passed down through generations, and how these inheritances can be transformed into care and enlightenment for the future.
Rather than envisioning utopia, this exhibition asks how we can honor the knowledge, experiences, and traditions of the past to cultivate a present rooted in growth, self-improvement, and care. Cultural and familial knowledge stand at the core of this show. The stories, traditions, lost histories, trauma and lessons passed down across generations hold wisdom that can guide us toward becoming better ancestors. Through the act of creation, artists transform these inheritances into artifacts, monuments or markers to possible future selves and future community. In this way, the works in Ancestral Futures embodies an ongoing dialogue between past, present, and future. Through this exhibition, we shine a light on the ethics of long-term thinking—what The Good Ancestor author Roman Krznaric calls “deep-time humility.”
About the Curator: Donté K. Hayes
Donté K. Hayes is a research-based artist residing and working in Cliffwood, New Jersey. He graduated summa cum laude from Kennesaw State University in Georgia with a BFA in Ceramics and Printmaking with an Art History minor. Donté received his MA and MFA with honors from the University of Iowa and is the 2017 recipient of the University of Iowa Arts Fellowship. Donté has been awarded residencies at MacDowell, Bemis Center, Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, Penland, Township 10, Watershed, Hambidge Center for Creative Arts and Sciences and The Peninsula School of Art. His work is included in the permanent collections of the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Minnesota Museum of American Art, Wellin Museum, Newark Museum of Art, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Gibbes Museum of Art, Newcomb Art Museum, Stanley Museum of Art, Crocker Art Museum and the Des Moines Art Center among others. Donté is a recipient of a 2023 New Jersey State Council on the Arts Individual Artist fellowship. In 2022 he was awarded a prestigious Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Biennial Grant Award. He is also a 2019 Ceramics Monthly Magazine Emerging Artists and Artaxis Fellow. Donté K. Hayes is represented by Mindy Solomon Gallery in Miami, Florida.
Visit Donté @ https://dontekhayes.com
Opening Reception, Friday, February 6th, 5:00-8:00pm
Exhibition dates: February 5-27, 2026
Gallery hours: Thurs – Fri 2-6pm, Sat – Sun 12-4 pm
This program is partially supported by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council Agency.