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Empowering and immersive new downtown pop-up museum celebrates Black women

“black women are worthy: art museum,” celebrates Black women at Post Houston.

Photo courtesy of Deun Ivory

Downtown’s hottest new destination will be the site of a new, immersive art installation that celebrates Black women, fittingly in the locale once named for the first black woman to hold a seat in state office from the Deep South.

Dubbed “black women are worthy: art museum,” this free, new experience “explores conceptual design as a healing mechanism for black women – in celebration of Black History Month,” a press release describes. The museum will celebrate a grand opening 7 pm-10 pm in the atrium of downtown’s Post Houston (401 Franklin St).

Things kick off with a guided meditation by Lululemon ambassador Davina Davison from 6-6:30 pm. The X atrium will feature a gallery of visuals curated by multidisciplinary artist Deun Ivory, a film screening, love notes and excerpts, and an interactive wellness experience rooted in affirmations and self-love reminders for women.

Ivory has photographed for Apple, Google, and Nike, among others. She is also the founder and creative director of The Body: A Home For Love, a nonprofit creative wellness space curating experiences and digital content that “democratizes access to beauty, wellness, and self-healing techniques for black women healing from sexual trauma,” per her bio. She created this new museum in her desire to provide beauty, wellness, and self-healing experiences for black women healing from sexual trauma, according to a statement.

Ivory also intends for her museum/experience to serve as a safe space for Black women to insert themselves into a narrative that “feels warm and inviting, while amplifying the little-known history of what once stood in the PostHtx’s place,” a statement adds.

Her choice of venue is intentional: Post Houston, now a mixed-use development, was once known as the Barbara Jordan Post Office. Jordan, who was raised in Houston’s Fifth Ward, was elected in 1966 to the Texas Senate, becoming the state’s first African-American senator since 1883. She was elected to the United States House of Representatives from Texas’s Eighteenth Congressional District, the district’s first representative. Ivory hopes to mirror Jordan’s commitment to fighting for the often unseen and underserved.

“Black women are worthy: art museum” is slated to run through March. More information on Ivory can be found here.

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Unforgettable elephant art installation rumbles into Houston's Hermann Park

Elephant sculptures part of The Great Elephant Migration

Photo by Corey Favino, Courtesy Elephant Family USA and Newport Restoration Foundation

The Great Elephant Migration is coming to Hermann Park in April.

They say an elephant never forgets. And it’s very likely that those who see the upcoming Great Elephant Migrantion installation in Hermann Park won’t forget it. One hundred life-sized Indian elephant sculptures will be on view from April 1-30.

The majority of the herd will take up residence in Hermann Park’s newest destination, the Commons. Smaller herds will be located at the Houston Museum of Natural Science and the Texas Medical Center. The installation is open daily during park hours and is free to view.

Houstonians also get a chance to see the newest — and biggest — member of the herd. His name is Matt, a real life Kenyan elephant who stood 10-feet tall and weighed more than six tons. As one of Kenya’s largest tuskers, he was closely monitored by Save the Elephants. Matt was fitted with a GPS collar in 2002, revealing groundbreaking insights into elephant migration. Over his 52 years, Matt roamed farther than any other tracked elephant in Kenya, covering hundreds of kilometers. Matt died of natural causes in 2019, leaving behind a legacy that continues to inform conservation efforts.

The exhibit is part of Hermann Park Conservancy’s Art in the Park Initiative. This is the fourth U.S. stop for the installation, which was previously seen in Newport, Rhode Island, New York City, and Miami Beach. The Great Elephant Migration is a women-led conservation effort, reflecting the matriarchal structures that elephants uphold in the wild. CBS Sunday Morning profiled the exhibition last year.

Each elephant is one-of-a-kind. The pachyderms were created by The Real Elephant Collective, a community of 200 Indigenous artisans living within India’s Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve in southern India. The herd is made from reclaimed Lantana camara, an invasive plant species that has entangled 300,000 square kilometers of India's forests and diminished food sources for all herbivores. The Great Elephant Migration is designed to spread a message of peaceful coexistence between humans and wildlife.

“The Great Elephant Migration is more than an art installation — it is a call to action and a place to experience joy,” said Cara Lambright, president and CEO of Hermann Park Conservancy. “By bringing this breathtaking global effort to Hermann Park, we are inviting our community to be part of a worldwide movement to protect ecosystems, eradicate invasive species, and inspire change. These are shared values that span continents.”

Parkgoers will see every elephant the artists live alongside, from female cows, male bulls (with and without tusks), and baby calves. They’ll also be part of a global awareness campaign. In addition to the pride and financial stability provided to the 200 members of theSoligas, Bettakurumbas, Kattunayakan, and Paniyas communities who created and coexist with the real wild elephants the herd is based on, the exhibit has raised more than half a million dollars.

While the installation is on display, Hermann Park Conservancy, in partnership with the Houston Parks and Recreation Department and Houston Museum of Natural Science, will present a series of engaging activities designed to help people learn more about these incredible creatures. The activities will be announced soon.

Following their stop in Houston, the elephants will continue their migration west, with stops in the Blackfeet Nation; Buffalo Pastures in Browning, Montana; Jackson Hole, Wyoming; and Los Angeles.

Photo by Corey Favino, Courtesy Elephant Family USA and Newport Restoration Foundation

The Great Elephant Migration is coming to Hermann Park in April.

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