arts & culture
InLiquid Exhibit Puts
Family Histories in Dialogue
SASHA ROGELBERG | STAFF WRITER
F or every thing artists Cheryl Harper and rod
jones ii have in common, they seem to have a
difference. Harper is a white Jewish woman and descendant of
Holocaust survivors married to a French man from
the American South with a family history of racism
and enslavement. jones is a queer Black man who
can’t trace back his family history farther than his
great-grandparents. Both have a background in printmaking and a
keen interest in exploring family histories, and both
were brought together for InLiquid’s spring exhibit
“What Are We Claiming?” The exhibit shows until
June 11.

Together, Harper and jones’ respective stories weave
narratives of recorded pasts and imagined ones.

Harper’s pieces of intricate dresses with American
flags and yellow Stars of David sewn into the fabric
hover over humble Shabbat candles and ornate silver
pieces, a representation of the relationship between
the different components of her family’s complex
lineage. jones, conversely, works with large, abstract
forms with colorful beadwork, his own dreamed-up
symbols of his and his family’s past.

Harper was born within 10 years of the Holocaust
and grew up in a Jewish environment where adults
were still grappling with the trauma of the war.

“That was really very difficult for children grow-
ing up in that era because they weren’t telling us
anything, but everybody was just really, really sad,”
Harper said.

Looking for a way to address her family’s inter-
generational trauma, Harper turned to themes of the
Holocaust and Jewish identity, tackling the dynamic
of predator and prey in her pieces since the 1990s.

“I was always an artist that wanted to make a state-
ment. I wanted to work with ideas, so that’s really
what I did,” Harper said.

But Harper’s family history became even more tan-
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