Stitching History Together: Jada Simone Haynes Explores Lineage, Preservation, and Resistance in ‘Black Memory Scholar’

SAN FRANCISCO — The Letterform Archive has announced its next major pop-up exhibition, Black Memory Scholar, on view in the Reading Room gallery from April 28 to July 10, 2026. Curated by Senior Collections Associate Jada Simone Haynes, the exhibition serves as both a deeply personal exploration of familial heritage and a broader political statement on the critical importance of preserving underrepresented histories.

Drawing from a tapestry of archival items, familial heirlooms, and contemporary multidisciplinary works, Haynes has constructed an exhibition that argues for the fundamental inclusion of Black storytelling as a legitimate, necessary form of historical preservation. In a detailed curatorial statement, Haynes outlines the emotional, historical, and artistic processes that birthed the project, framing the exhibition not merely as a display of objects, but as a living quilt of memory, resistance, and identity.

Main Facts: At a Glance

• Exhibition Black Memory Scholar
• Location: Reading Room Gallery, Letterform Archive, San Francisco
• Dates: April 28 – July 10, 2026
• Curator: Jada Simone Haynes, Senior Collections Associate at Letterform Archive
• Core Themes: The intersection of family genealogy, Black scholarship, the multidisciplinary nature of Black storytelling, and the urgency of institutional preservation against erasure.
• Featured Works and Artifacts:
  • A handmade quilt top crafted circa 1930 by the curator’s great-great-aunt, Birdtee T. Cornell.
  • Rare literary and artistic texts, including issues of The Black Scholar featuring the works of Joyce Carol Thomas alongside literary giants like Audre Lorde and Alice Walker.
  • Contemporary artist books and projects, such as Solange Knowles’s A Seat at the Table (2016), Shala Miller’s Tender Noted (2023), and Cara Levine’s collaborative multi-media project This Is Not A Gun (2020).
  • Selections from the personal library of the curator’s mother, Lorlelei Lee-Haynes.

Chronology: From Fifth-Grade Book Reports to the Archive Gallery

The lineage of Black Memory Scholar stretches back over a decade and a half, rooted deeply in Haynes’s childhood interactions with literature, family, and art.

• 2010 (The Seed): At eleven years old, Haynes was assigned a fifth-grade book report. Her mother handed her a well-worn copy of Marked By Fire, a novel written by Haynes’s great-aunt, the acclaimed author Joyce Carol Thomas. Though the mature themes initially felt like fiction, Haynes later realized her great-aunt was weaving her own life’s realities into the protagonist, Abyssinia. This planted an early, enduring desire in Haynes to tell stories.
• 2015–2019 (Artistic Exploration): Channeling her creative impulses, Haynes initially pursued writing before transitioning to visual art, painting, sculpture, and short-film creation using a family VHS camera alongside her twin brother.
• 2021 (Advanced Research & Family Archives): During her final two years at the University of California, Davis, Haynes returned to her family’s literary roots during an advanced research photography course. Facilitated by her great-aunt Dr. Flora Krasnovsky, Haynes gained access to the family archives, focusing specifically on a letter detailing her ancestor Birdtee Cornell’s migration from Oklahoma west to Tracy, California. This research later informed creative projects like Mad Black Redacted, a reimagining of one of Thomas’s unreleased plays.
• Late 2025 (The Spark): Haynes’s great-aunt Flora introduced her to performing artist, educator, and composer Omari Tau as he embarked on a sabbatical project about Joyce Carol Thomas. Haynes assisted in displaying Thomas’s works at the Tracy Historical Museum. Concurrently, while conducting research pulls at the Letterform Archive, Haynes stumbled upon a poem by Thomas in a historic issue of The Black Scholar. Seeing her family’s legacy resting alongside literary icons like Audre Lorde and Alice Walker—coupled with real-world political rollbacks targeting Black scholarship—galvanized Haynes to build a comprehensive exhibition.
• April 28 – July 10, 2026 (The Exhibition): Black Memory Scholar officially opens to the public at the Letterform Archive, manifesting years of personal archival work into a physical installation.

Supporting Data & Conceptual Framework: The Anatomy of a Quilt

The conceptual framework of Black Memory Scholar relies heavily on metaphors of sewing, patchwork, and domestic artistry, which Haynes elevates to the status of high historical inquiry.

To assemble the exhibition, Haynes began with an inventory of Black and Indigenous creators compiled to support funding initiatives for processing underrepresented histories within the Archive. Rather than relying solely on traditional institutional artifacts, she sought out objects that demonstrated the multidisciplinary nature of Black storytelling—spanning textiles, visual art, oral histories, and radical periodicals.

Key Archival Anchors

1. Periodicals of Free-Form Thought: Haynes draws heavily from 1960s and 1970s radical press, particularly The Black Scholar. These publications serve as a foundational layer, proving that Black intellectualism has long thrived outside Eurocentric academic frameworks.
2. Contemporary Artist Books: The exhibition integrates modern masterworks that challenge traditional book formats. Solange Knowles’s A Seat at the Table (2016) is featured as a gateway to broader social practice, while Shala Miller’s Tender Noted (2023) operates as an intimate visual diary interrogating Blackness and desire. Cara Levine’s This Is Not A Gun (2020) provides a conceptual bridge regarding community, violence, and collective witness.
3. Generational Domestic Archives: Breaking institutional boundaries, Haynes secured permission to feature a curated selection of books from her mother’s personal library. Lorlelei Lee-Haynes collected these texts—spanning African American studies, history, and literature—to ensure her children had direct access to their heritage. As her mother noted when asked why she maintained the collection: "I fear that we will be erased again."
4. The Centerpiece Quilt: At the physical and emotional heart of the exhibition is a handmade quilt top crafted around 1930 by Birdtee T. Cornell, the curator’s great-great-aunt whose migration from Oklahoma to California forms a cornerstone of the family’s oral history.

Official Perspectives and Statements

Reflecting on the motivations behind Black Memory Scholar, Haynes emphasizes that the exhibition is a direct counter-narrative to modern social and institutional regression:

"Unless people like me are present in these spaces and can interact with, preserve, and share these objects, it is unlikely they will be activated in this way within archives," Haynes notes. "Black storytelling belongs as a foundational, not peripheral, form of historical preservation. Black storytelling is a language in itself."

The curator’s statement places a particular emphasis on the unrecognized labor of Black women and femmes, who have historically acted as the primary custodians of cultural memory:

"I hope Black Memory Scholar encourages others who have been historically excluded from these spaces to participate in memory work inside and outside the Archive. I want to inspire others to discover the power of storytelling, especially Black women and femmes, who have often been the original archivists of Black life and have preserved and carried lineages forward through any means necessary."

Implications: Preserving Memory in an Era of Erasure

The debut of Black Memory Scholar arrives at a pivotal juncture for cultural institutions, libraries, and archives globally. In an era marked by the digital sanitization of history, institutional backpedaling, and legislative efforts to restrict the teaching of Black histories, exhibitions like Haynes’s take on urgent political and social significance.

By interweaving personal genealogical artifacts—such as a 1930s quilt and her mother’s bookshelves—with canonical radical texts, Haynes challenges the rigid boundaries that traditionally separate "high art" and institutional history from domestic and oral traditions. The exhibition asserts that memory is not a passive artifact stored away in climate-controlled vaults, but an active, inherited practice that requires constant tending, stitching, and storytelling.

Ultimately, Black Memory Scholar redefines the archive as a living space of kinship. As Haynes observes, the true threads connecting generations and creators are not confined to museum vitrines or gallery walls; they live inside family homes, inherited paintings, and the spoken voices of ancestors passed down through time.