Vanessa Johnson is a griot, playwright, actor, fiber artist, museum consultant, and teaching artist. She combines fiber art and storytelling, sharing autobiographical stories, traditional African and diaspora tales, and social justice movement stories.
Johnson performs and conducts workshops at schools, colleges, libraries, museums and community events. She has exhibited at the SUNY Oswego Metro Center, Syracuse University’s Community Folk Art Center, the Tioga Arts Council Center, Onondaga County Library branches, and has done a Schweinfurth Museum trunk show.
Her first solo show, Unwrapping Vanessa, exhibited at Syracuse’s ArtRage Gallery in 2017. Vanessa curated her first group show, The Struggle to Connect, in February and March 2022. The show included her work in dialogue about race with women artists of color and of European descent.
Johnson founded the Harambee Youth Tent at the New York State Fair Pan African Village, offering youth arts activities from Africa and the African Diaspora guided by professional artists in 2000. She was a teaching artist in Syracuse City District after-school programs from 2005 to spring 2022, teaching storytelling, drama, African cultural, and fiber arts.
She currently teaches fiber arts and drama for the Syracuse University Community Folk Art Gallery Arts Academy after-school program. She has conducted fiber arts workshops for youth at the Everson Museum and at the Schweinfurth Art Center. Johnson is Artist in Residence at the Matilda Joslyn Gage Foundation in Fayetteville.
The Cayuga Museum of History and Art is announcing two exhibit openings on Saturday, May 28. In the main Museum, visitors will welcome back the CNY Emerging Artist project, featuring the work of Syracuse artist Vanessa Johnson at the Cayuga Museum and neighboring Schweinfurth Art Center.
Johnson’s exhibit, In God’s Voice: A Celebration of the Spirituality of Harriet Tubman examines the national icon’s profound faith. Johnson will exhibit quilts and fiber artworks that address Tubman’s spirituality and faith: her use of nature to guide her path as she freed enslaved people; her blackouts, in which she said God spoke to her; and her faith in the allies, both Black and white, who supported her rescues.
In addition, the Cayuga Museum will also be opening the Case Research Laboratory for in-person tours. The middle building on the campus of the Cayuga Museum of History and Art, the historic structure is the birthplace of sound-on-film technology. Tours of the Lab will be available on the hour from 11a.m.-3 p.m., beginning on Saturday, May 28.
In God’s Voice: A Celebration of the Spirituality of Harriet Tubman will be on display from May 28-August 13. Admission is $10, $15 for joint passes to the Cayuga Museum and Schweinfurth. Children under 12 and Cayuga Museum Members are free.
Support for this program is provided by the City of Auburn’s American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) allocation of funds to support the City of Auburn Historic and Cultural Sites Commission’s Harriet Tubman Bicentennial project with a goal of boosting the recovery from the pandemic for the tourism, travel, and hospitality industry.