Walk on By

Walk on By is an exhibition and cultural exchange between Rotterdam and Baltimore, revolving around diaspora cultures and community connections in both cities. Baltimore-based curator and initiator Joy Davis paired three artists from each city, to explore how each of them relates socially and spiritually to their communities through their art.

The result is an exhibition of photographs, paintings and murals that tell diverse stories about black culture and experience—not only through what the works represent, but also through the use of elements such as colour, light, detail and abstraction as an artistic strategy. With this emphasis, the exhibition is a celebration of the power of visual language, for its ability to offer recognition across language barriers, and for the distance it allows from the narratives that tend to dominate the public debate.

More than an exhibition 

The title of this project is inspired by Dionne Warwick’s famous song Walk on By, which tells the story of a broken relationship and the pain of indifference. For curator Joy Davis it was a metaphor for the connections and obstacles within the black diaspora, and particularly the Black Atlantic. Underlying her Walk on By project is a question that is intimately entwined with the legacy of the black diaspora and has renewed urgency in our time of political polarisation and hate speech: “What cross-cultural connections do we have, but what conversations are we not having? What foundation for connectivity and solidarity can we build to achieve collective strength?”—Joy Davis.

In order to facilitate such connections, Walk on By encompasses an exchange programme for the participating artists and organisations—held in Baltimore last year, and in Rotterdam this March. An intensive week of meetings with each other and with cultural initiatives and community builders offers an opportunity to share knowledge and lived experience and forge lasting bonds. This makes Walk on By the perfect public kickstart for TENT’s renewed artistic and social mission, a central aim of which is to engage more actively with the city through our projects and collaborations, and to keep learning from and with the city. 

For the Rotterdam edition of Walk on By, TENT has engaged more contributors through an additional programme. Over the course of the exhibition, artists Tamara Vierbergen and Sheray of Light will collaborate with school groups and develop a growing collective artwork; multidisciplinary choreographer Sheree Lenting will present her new performance Love in Transit; and spoken word artist Elten Kiene and Cult North will realise a workshop series and performance with young people around the question: "What are the stories we never tell, and why not?"