Saturday, May 23 through Saturday, July 11, 2026; Opening Reception May 23 from 3–6 PM
Midwest Swang opens in the Charlotte Street Gallery on Saturday, May 23 with an opening reception from 3–6 PM; the exhibition will remain on view through Saturday, July 11, 2026.
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Midwest Swang is a return and a recognition. A gathering of the folk who are all shaped by memory, migration, and the quiet knowing that the regional impact has not left.
Taking its title from the St. Lunatics’ 1999 track, the exhibition leans into a country grammar phrase that holds weight beyond its brief time on air waves. Midwest Swang names a specific style of expression marked by innovation cultivated in the Black Midwest. It is both an archive and a nod to a much bigger cultural influence.
For curator Mueni Loko Rudd, the Midwest is both personal and foundational. Born in Missouri, her earliest experiences with art and community were shaped in St. Louis—selling East African folk art alongside her mother and witnessing firsthand the vibrancy of Black Midwestern life. Though her curatorial practice has since developed in Texas and beyond, Midwest Swang marks a deliberate return. The region has remained dear and this is the first of many offerings back to a place that continues to inform her lens. Circling back comes from place of care and cultural responsibility.
Bringing together Black contemporary artists connected to the region, the exhibition traces how place shapes identity and how that identity travels. The audience is moving through and between cities like Detroit, Minneapolis, Kansas City, Chicago, and Milwaukee, each carrying its own cultural imprint on the artists. The aesthetics of everyday life and the stories carried in-between.
This is not nostalgia. It is a living presence.
This exhibition insists on the Midwest as a site of ongoing creativity and influence—one that is often overlooked, yet deeply embedded in the fabric of Black American cultural production. Here, the region is honored not as distant, but as kin. Not as past, but as present.
This is your invitation to recognize…
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CURATED BY
Mueni Loko Rudd
CONTRIBUTING ARTISTS
Tay Butler, Shaina McCoy, Dontay Lockett, Kathedral Looney, and Alexis Pye
COVER IMAGE
Tay Butler, Image Still from MILien
Exhibition Details
ABOUT THE CURATOR, MUENI LOKO RUDD
Mueni Loko Rudd is a Kenyan American independent curator, cultural preservationist, and scholar advocate whose work prioritizes Black and other historically excluded folks. Rooted in liberation, her curatorial practice challenges colonial patriarchal structures while fostering community-centered offerings across the South and beyond.
In 2022, Mueni joined the faculty at Huston-Tillotson University, where she teaches in the College of Arts & Sciences. Previous curatorial shows include the Black Panther Party Museum (Oakland, CA), Future Front (Austin, TX), George Washington Carver Museum (Austin, TX), ICOSA Collective (Austin, TX), Martha’s (Austin, TX), and SWIM Gallery (San Francisco, CA). Contributions from Mueni have been published in Routledge, Frontiers, TEDx, and The Publicizer. She has been featured in Atmos, Glasstire, Kenyan Arts Review, Surface Magazine, and The Austin Chronicle.
