Jamaica Center for Arts & Learning (JCAL) Presents Memory Vault

The Jamaica Center for Arts & Learning (JCAL) - a cornerstone of the Queens cultural landscape and premier hub for visual and performing arts - proudly presents the culminating exhibition of its 2026 ARTWorks Fellowship with Memory Vault. The collection of dynamic artworks showcases six emerging artists who recently completed ARTWorks, JCAL’s six-month professional development fellowship program supporting underrepresented voices in New York City’s visual arts community through mentorship, professional development, and public presentation of their work. Now open, the exhibition will remain on view at JCAL through May 22 and is free and open to the public. Curated by Dr. Margarita Lila Rosa, Memory Vault features work the 2026 ARTWorks fellows to include: Coulibaly Adama Nanguin Abib Junior (JANAC), Anoushka Bhalla, Edgie Amisial, Keilley Banks, Jashawn Johnson, and Quiana Lewis. Queens-based mixed-media artist and arts educator Sherwin Banfield serves as Program Manager for the initiative. Guided by the concept of “meditating on the present moment as a future archive,” the exhibition explores how the participating artists document the textures of contemporary life through portraiture, cityscapes, sculpture, and experimental forms. Moving between the deeply personal and the broadly cultural, the artists draw from intimate details of daily life - families, living rooms, bedrooms, and neighborhoods - alongside the cultural forces shaping the present moment, with television, music, digital aesthetics, street fashion, architecture, viral trends, food traditions, household objects, and neighborhood storefronts serving as tools of documentation. Through these materials, the exhibition assembles a living archive of everyday life as portraits become records of how identity and presence are expressed today, while cityscapes trace neighborhoods in transition and sculptures and installations preserve the materials, gestures, and tensions that define the era.

Event Links

Website: https://go.evvnt.com/3549705-0

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