September 2024 - January 2025
Andrea Morales: Roll Down Like Water
Roll Down Like Water features sixty-five photographs spanning a decade of work by the Memphis-based, Peruvian-American photographer Andrea Morales. These images reflect the collective change of Memphis and the surrounding region over time, a place that often just eludes definition by the many storytellers, poets, and songwriters that have lived in or passed through this area. Morales’s talent is looking directly, earnestly, while creating space for the essence of this place–the magic of it–to enter her lens.
Her approach is informed by Movement Journalism–an emerging, ethical, and community-oriented journalistic framework–and anchored in the historic legacies of activism in the American South. Titled after Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s final speech of his life in Memphis, in which he said “let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream,” the images in this exhibition course through and around the structural issues and legacies in society, while documenting how those structures can be forever altered by an individual, a moment, or the strength of a community. The result is a complex and tender portrait of this region.
This exhibition represents Morales’s first major museum exhibition and catalogue, and the first museum exhibition dedicated to Movement Journalism. Through her captivating images of the South in moments of turbulence, stillness, darkness, and beauty, Morales charts new paths in sustainable journalism, while reflecting upon identity, community, and the power of storytelling.
The Andrea Morales Interactive Gallery is a space for visitors to reflect more on their relationship to Memphis or their own communities. In this gallery, visitors can write a love letter to Memphis since Morales herself calls her photographs love letters to Memphis. Using gold paper, visitors are encouraged to hang their letters up among the others, and together they'll create a shimmering mural in the interactive space. Visitors can also upload their own photographs of Memphis to a monitor in the gallery. The space also features a reading nook where visitors can learn more about photographers, writers, and activists that have inspired Andrea Morales.
In addition the interactive gallery of this exhibition, features a monitor displaying photographs of Memphis taken by museum visitors. You can add yours to the monitor by visiting the link below.
When you upload your image, it will be added to our community folder.
New images will be added to the monitor’s slideshow every other week.
Share Your Photos of Memphis!
Andrea Morales: Roll Down Like Water is supported by the Terra Foundation for American Art, the Henry Luce Foundation, the Arthur F. and Alice E. Adams Charitable Foundation, and Humanities Tennessee, an independent affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities with additional support provided by MLK50: Justice Through Journalism, Bill and Lisa Courtney, Underground Art, Inc. and Isabel González Whitaker
All exhibitions at the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art are underwritten by the MBMA Exhibition Fund. Major annual support is provided by Kay Clark and Maggie and Milton Lovell, with generous annual funding from Anonymous, Gloria and Kenneth Boyland, Holly and Paul T. Combs, Deborah and Bob Craddock, Michael and Maria Douglass, Eleanor and William Halliday, Debi and Galen Havner, Buzzy Hussey and Hal Brunt, Jay and Kristen Keegan, the Doris S. and Hubert Kiersky Charitable Remainder Trust, Carl and Valerie Person, and Bill Townsend.
Exhibition Programs
Super Saturday - Sunprints and Postcards
At this Super Saturday, learn about how to use the sun to create images!
Free with Registration
Super Saturday - Memphis Landscapes
Join us for a special Super Saturday all about Andrea Morales.
Free with Registration
Andrea Morales and her Ancestors: The Documentary Tradition
Join us at the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art as John Edwin Mason talks about the relationship between Andrea Morales' work and the history of documentary photography.
$15 Members | $20 General Admission
Gallery Talk with Ariel Cobbert
Join us for a gallery talk with Memphis-based artist Ariel J. Cobbert. Ariel J. Cobbert (b. 1995, Hattiesburg, MS) is a Memphis-based multidisciplinary artist. In 2018, Cobbert received her BA in Print Journalism and African American Studies from the University of Mississippi.
$15 Member | $20 General Admission
Gallery Talk with Elle Perry
Join us for a gallery talk about Andrea Morales' show with Memphian Elle Perry. Born and raised in Memphis, Elle Perry has covered arts and culture (and related subjects) in the Bluff City for nearly 20 years
$15 Members | $20 Exhibition
Cocktails with the Curator: Dr. Rosamund Garrett
Join chief curator, Dr. Rosamund Garrett for a closer look at the art of Andrea Morales.
Available for members only.
Super Saturday - Memphis Zines
Create your own zine about what you love in Memphis!
Free with Registration
Homeschool Day - Memphis Through Photography
Free with Registration
Andrea Morales Photography Teacher Workshop
Teachers, come explore photography with Eric Echols and receive professional development too! Eric Echols will lead a workshop on engaging high school students with photography and how they use the medium as a form of self-expression and reflection on their community.
Free with Registration
Storytelling as Liberation: A Conversation with Andrea Morales and Micaela Watts
Join us for a captivating panel discussion that dives into the powerful intersection of storytelling, community, and liberation.
Free for Members | $20 General Admission | $5 Students
Artist
Curators
Artist
Andrea Morales
Andrea Morales (b. 1984) (she/her/ella) is a queer, Latiné documentary photographer and photojournalist whose work focuses on social movements, community, and everyday magic in Memphis and the wider American South. Born in Lima, Peru, Morales grew up in Miami’s Little Havana neighborhood and is currently based in Memphis. She received a BS in Journalism and a certificate in Latin American Studies at the University of Florida, an MA in Visual Communication at Ohio University, and an MFA in Documentary Expression from the University of Mississippi. She has worked in newsrooms across the United States, and her photos have been featured in outlets including The Atlantic, The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, Le Monde, NBC News, ProPublica, Washington Post, Rolling Stone, TIME Magazine, and The New York Times. She currently serves as the Visuals Director at MLK50: Justice Through Journalism, a nonprofit newsroom in Memphis reporting on the intersections of poverty, power, and public policy. Her work has been exhibited across the country and is held in public and private collections including The Do Good Fund, Memphis International Airport, and the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art. (Photo Credit: Lucy Garrett)
Andrea Morales
Andrea Morales (b. 1984) (she/her/ella) is a queer, Latiné documentary photographer and photojournalist whose work focuses on social movements, community, and everyday magic in Memphis and the wider American South. Born in Lima, Peru, Morales grew up in Miami’s Little Havana neighborhood and is currently based in Memphis. She received a BS in Journalism and a certificate in Latin American Studies at the University of Florida, an MA in Visual Communication at Ohio University, and an MFA in Documentary Expression from the University of Mississippi. She has worked in newsrooms across the United States, and her photos have been featured in outlets including The Atlantic, The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, Le Monde, NBC News, ProPublica, Washington Post, Rolling Stone, TIME Magazine, and The New York Times. She currently serves as the Visuals Director at MLK50: Justice Through Journalism, a nonprofit newsroom in Memphis reporting on the intersections of poverty, power, and public policy. Her work has been exhibited across the country and is held in public and private collections including The Do Good Fund, Memphis International Airport, and the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art. (Photo Credit: Lucy Garrett)
Rosamund Garrett
Dr Rosamund Garrett is the Chief Curator at the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art. Born in the United Kingdom, Rosamund gained her undergraduate at the University of Edinburgh and Edinburgh College of Art, before joining The Courtauld Institute of Art, London, for her MA (2011-12), and PhD (2012-2016). There she specialized in the art of Northern Europe in the Late Medieval and Renaissance period. Dr Garrett has worked in various museum positions in the UK including The National Trust and The Courtauld Gallery in London, working primarily with European Art and global contemporary art. In November 2018, Dr Garrett moved to Memphis. Here, she has worked on exhibitions including Power & Absence: Women in Europe, 1500 - 1680, Mona Hatoum: Misbah, and On Christopher Street: Transgender Portraits by Mark Seliger.
Chief Curator
Rosamund Garrett
Dr Rosamund Garrett is the Chief Curator at the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art. Born in the United Kingdom, Rosamund gained her undergraduate at the University of Edinburgh and Edinburgh College of Art, before joining The Courtauld Institute of Art, London, for her MA (2011-12), and PhD (2012-2016). There she specialized in the art of Northern Europe in the Late Medieval and Renaissance period. Dr Garrett has worked in various museum positions in the UK including The National Trust and The Courtauld Gallery in London, working primarily with European Art and global contemporary art. In November 2018, Dr Garrett moved to Memphis. Here, she has worked on exhibitions including Power & Absence: Women in Europe, 1500 - 1680, Mona Hatoum: Misbah, and On Christopher Street: Transgender Portraits by Mark Seliger.
Program Recordings
Resources
The 901 Black American Portraits Soundtrack
Listen to a soundtrack of Memphis music that exemplifies Black Love, Power, and Joy. The 901 Black American Portraits Soundtrack celebrates the vibrant legacy and future of Black musicians in the city of Memphis. This playlist was curated by Jared “Jay B” Boyd, a Memphis-based multimedia artist, journalist, DJ, and on-air personality.
MCA Exhibition Questionnaire
Help us generate the fullest picture possible of the MCA experience.
Submitting a questionnaire, which includes a request for an image of an artwork, is essential to be considered for part of the exhibition.
Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?
The American art theorist Linda Nochlin (1931-2017) posed this question as the title of a pioneering article in 1971. This essay was considered one of the first major works of Feminist art history, it has become a set text for those who study art internationally, and it is influential in many other fields.