A Love Letter to This Bridge Called My Back

“A Love Letter to This Bridge Called My Back” gathers visual, poetic and pedagogical works by women of color across generations. While rooted in the legacy of the landmark 1981 anthology “This Bridge Called My Back,” this exhibition stands apart as its own body of work — one that speaks boldly into the present.

We are living through yet another iteration of the very violences–racial, gendered, colonial, and structural — that the original “Bridge” writers resisted. This exhibition invites viewers not only to witness these conditions, but to assemble around practices of refusal, care, and feminist world-making. It is a space of return, rupture, and continued insistence on living otherwise.

“A Love Letter to This Bridge Called My Back” features artworks drawn from — and created in response to — the 2022 anthology edited by former School of Art Professor gloria j. wilson, Dr. Amelia (Amy) Kraehe and Dr. Joni B. Acuff, published by the University of Arizona Press.

The exhibition, co-curated by wilson, Acuff and Gallery Director lydia see, is on view until Feb. 20 in the School of Art’s Joseph Gross Gallery, honors the groundbreaking 1981 feminist anthology edited by Gloria Anzaldúa and Cherríe Moraga — “This Bridge Called My Back” — and invites visitors to immerse themselves in text, audio, video, installation and visual art.

In addition to Wilson and Acuff, artists in the exhibition are Sama Alshaibi , Charlene Carruthers, Keya Crenshaw , Lizz Denneau, Michelle Bae Dimitriadis, Dionne Custer Edwards, Pamela Harris Lawton, Vanessa López, Sonia Mañjon, Tyiesha Radford Shorts, Olivia Richardson, Aram Han Sifuentes and Lisa Whittington.

• Link to show guide
• Link to checklist

A reception from 4 to 7 p.m. with artists and curators will be held Thursday, Feb. 12, 2026 with a Q+A at 5:30.  

Wilson is now undergraduate studies chair and an associate professor of Arts Administration, Education and Policy at The Ohio State University.

Installation views of the exhibition