Visit This Exhibit
January 15, 2020 – November 22, 2020
Open Wednesday – Sunday
11 AM – 4 PM CST
Accessibility
This exhibit is located on the first floor, and is wheelchair accessible.
If These Walls Could Talk
In Collaboration with Artist Ginger Geyer and Jennifer Rousseau Cumberbatch
On view through November 22, 2020 | Press Release
This spring the Neill-Cochran House Museum is proud to host the major history and artistic collaboration If These Walls Could Talk. The show will place ceramicist Ginger Geyer’s modern porcelain sculpture into the historic spaces of the museum.
Geyer in collaboration with actor Jennifer Rousseau Cumberbatch will use the artwork as a launch pad for a series of conversations between two adolescent girls, Chlora and Ruby Virginia. The two girls, one white and one black, will highlight similarities and dissonances between past and present, high art and material culture, and experiences and treatment one would have received in a home like the NCHM Greek Revival-style mansion depending on race, class, gender, and socio-economic status through time.
take a virtual tour of the exhibit
Performance Schedule
Join Actress Jennifer Rousseau Cumberbatch as she performs a one-woman show inspired by Geyer’s artwork throughout the exhibition. Please register to attend by selecting from the dates below.
February 6: Rise & Shine: 5:30PM-7:30PM
February 20: Rise & Shine Encore Performance: 5:30PM-7:30PM
February 27: “Black Builders of a White City: Erecting Race in Early Austin” (part of the Modern Times Lecture Series): 5:30PM-7:30PM
February 29: Bus Tour with Shoebox Picnic: 10:30AM and 1:30PM
March 8: Oratory Sunday: 2:30PM-4:30PM
March 26: Make America Sing Again: 5:30PM-7:30PM
June 19-21: Juneteenth Weekend Driving Tour: 11:00AM-4:00PM
November 19: Finale Celebration: 6:00-8:00PM
Continuing the Conversation – The Story Corps Experience
During the exhibit, the Neill-Cochran House Museum will be offering an opportunity to participate in the Story Corps Project. An interview location will be set up in the special Kitchen Exhibit on the second floor. Here friends can come together and ask each other questions and tell stories about their lives as if they were sharing a meal over the kitchen table. It will be an excellent opportunity for exhibit visitors to open up and share their thoughts following their experiences of If These Walls Could Talk. Following the end of the exhibit, the Neill-Cochran House Museum will ensure all recordings are provided to Story Corps who will archive them with the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC. Learn more about Story Corps here.
Meet Chlora and Ruby Virginia
Alexa McGlathery
Thirteen Year Old Alexa McGlathery has been acting on the screen and stage since she was 9 years old. She is an eighth grader at Trinity Episcopal School. Alexa also trains in voice and dance and performs with a band and in choir. Alexa’s favorite thing about acting is being able to create and develop new characters, as well as making new friendships on sets. Outside of theater Alexa’s favorite activities are wake surfing and skate boarding.
Araya Sue
is 9 years old, and a fourth grade “A” student at Forest Creek Elementary School.While this is her debut in film and acting she hopes to continue to pursue acting as she enjoys being on stage and in front of the camera. Araya also loves meeting new people and enjoys playing with her friends. Araya sings in the school choir and a member of the running club. Araya is an active member of Agape Christian Ministries, dances on the Praise and Worship Team,and attends The Fire Dance Academy in Austin. Araya loves to read and draw. She enjoys soccer and swimming as well as spending time with her family.
Meet the Exhibit Artists
Ginger Geyer
Austin artist Ginger Geyer grew up in Springdale, Arkansas, attended the University of Arkansas and earned BFA and MFA degrees in painting and art history from SMU. She also has a lay degree from the Seminary of the Southwest in pastoral ministry. Formerly an art museum professional (Dallas Museum of Art and Kimbell Art Museum), she occasionally consults on collection management and architecture. For 15 years she directed artist workshops and curated the gallery for the H.E. Butt Foundation retreat center, Laity Lodge. All of this, plus being a mother of two and grandmother of one have informed her avid studio practice. Writing, serving as adjunct professor at both Seminary of the Southwest and Concordia University, and making art with homeless people have also influenced her art. For thirty years, porcelain sculpture has been the primary medium for combining her quests into art history, museology, spirituality, and culture. A large body of “not quite trompe l’oeil” works are accompanied by ever-changing narratives. A retrospective of her work in early 2020 at the Neill-Cochran House Museum in Austin takes it beyond the gallery scene into an immersive experience throughout the historic house and its slave dependency. “If These Walls Could Talk” is a collaborative with a performing artist to explore both the privileged and the enslaved who graced these grounds. More information can be found at www.gingergeyer.com, Instagram and Valley House Gallery & Sculpture Garden in Dallas.
Jennifer Rousseau Cumberbatch
is a pastor, counselor, actress and playwright from Austin, the owner and founder of JR Cumberbatch Productions, and Cumberbatch Confections. Jennifer is sent out from Agape Christian Ministries, where she was an associate pastor, to found and establish Full Measure Ministries. She has written, starred in, staged and produced several productions, in Austin and throughout Texas. She has starred in her one woman show “R3: Real Life, Real Women, Real Stories”, “and performed as “Sadie” Delany in “Having Our Say, the Delany Sisters First 100 Years”, and Sally Burditt in “The Bluebellies in Austin: Readings from the Travis Country Slave Narratives”. Jennifer worked with and was directed by the late and venerable Boyd Vance, founder and artistic director of the now defunct Pro Arts Collective. The Boyd Vance Theater at Austin’s Carver museum is named after this great artist and visionary and is the inspiration for Jennifer’s Production Company and passion to tell the stories of African Americans, Black people and all peoples with authenticity and depth in the context of the American landscape. A graduate of Brown University and Austin’s Seminary of the Southwest, Jennifer also preaches, teaches, leads retreats, and is a vocalist and published writer.
Exhibit sponsors
