niko w. okoro and Erik Clemons.
A new art gallery is coming to the Lab at ConnCORP, on Newhall. The Orchid Gallery, organized by nico w. okoro of the bldg fund, is born out of conversations with area artists, with the goals of making a space for Black and Brown artists in the community to be seen and heard, supporting them in their professional development, and making a place where artists can come together.
“It’s very much the vision of Erik Clemons” — ConnCORP’s chief executive officer — “who wanted to have visual art in the space,” okoro said.
The space in question, inside the ConnCORP building, isn’t the size and shape of a traditional gallery, which okoro sees as a strength.
“I come from a museum and a gallery background, so I have that traditional white-cube experience” of running spaces where art is shown, okoro said. “This is very much not that, on purpose. All I keep hearing artists say is that we want space to exhibit and space to be together.”
When Clemons showed her the area, she thought “let’s do what we can with what we have, but also understanding the mission of this place, in terms of supporting entrepreneurship and thinking about artists as entrepreneurs that are undersupported.” That happens to be “very much the work of me and my husband at the bldg fund. So for us it’s a perfect pairing — a perfect way to support Erik and ConnCORP but then also do the thing we said we were going to do, in a space that is whatever we want it to be.”
As described on the bldg fund’s website, okoro and her husband Malik D.L. Okoro founded the company in 2020 as “an innovation platform for BIPOC artists, entrepreneurs, and neighbors. A collaborative engine for the cultivation of radical ideas, we partner with New Haven’s diverse creative communities to produce place-based projects.” Together nico and Malik have three decades of arts management and business operations experience. Before coming to New Haven, okoro worked at the Studio Museum in Harlem and Rush Arts Gallery. She and her family came to New Haven in 2019 when she became NXTHVN’s inaugural executive director.
While at NXTHVN, she “met all these amazing pockets of people” and even when she left her position there, she and her husband realized they “still very much wanted to do what we moved to New Haven to do, which was be thought workers to all the amazing folks who are already here.” They collaborated with Artspace, Creative Arts Workshop, and the Stetson Branch Library, among others. But “Erik Clemons was one of the first people we met here. He’s like brother, uncle, mentor.” So when Clemons called them with his idea for a gallery in ConnCORP, okoro said yes.
For Clemons, the idea of a gallery space came from walking around the ConnCORP building after installing a mural in the nearby Recess Cafe, “and then walking into this space and feeling differently,” he said. “I just felt like this space especially was screaming for art — and if in fact art, then it should be Black and Brown artists who are local, who deserve to be heard and seen.” In thinking about developing that idea, “there was no other person I could reach out to than niko,” given her track record in New York and New Haven.
“It was really about creating place and space for Black and Brown artists to be seen and heard,” said Clemons, “and for them to be in business, to hopefully make money creating the things that they see in their minds and in their hearts.”
The gallery space, under development.
okoro has been developing the idea in large part by listening to New Haven’s artists. She has thus been cognizant of a “loss of morale” in the city’s visual arts scene following the upheaval of last year. okoro “feels it on both sides,” she said. “I’m trained as an artist. Artists are my people. That’s the number one allegiance to me, and so that’s always the voice I hear the loudest.” She’s also a curator and administrator, and sometimes those voices are at odds. But right now, “they’re saying the same thing. We need space that represents us, that feels like us, that is welcoming to our communities without hesitation.”
Regarding the inaugural show, “my hope would be that it shows a cross-section of folks from our community,” people of “different ages, parts of town, levels of experience” and “exposure of showing their work to the world.” She hopes then to be able to bring all those artists together to meet and talk with one another, and get to know ConnCORP better. Among both the artworks and the artists themselves, there can be “a conversation about what’s needed now.”
They’ve already given the space a fresh coat of paint and are installing the hardware needed to hang artwork in the space. The call for the first show in the space is open until this Thursday, Feb. 29. “Then we’ll have a sense of who wants to be a part of this inaugural season of exhibitions.” From there, they make selections and organize shows for the remainder of 2024. At the end of the year, there’s a thought to have an annual show where artists will have a chance to sell their work. And in the first show, they’ll learn about how best to develop the space further — and perhaps expand art shows to other parts of the ConnCORP building as well.
For both okoro and Clemons, the gallery blends seamlessly into ConnCORP’s work overall — as real estate developer, Black business incubator, place for education and support of entrepreneurship, hospitality provider. As okoro pointed out, preparing artists to sell their work, or talking to collectors who might be interested, is part of an artist’s development, and they are ready to help with that.
“I’ve never thought that true artists believe their art is just a hobby,” Clemons said. “There should be a business component to it that satisfies them” in the same way that “their art gratifies the world.” okoro agreed, pointing out that most artists don’t think of themselves as entrepreneurs. “But what supports your ability to do that with your time?” she asked. “How are you supporting your practice? Getting more artists in the practice of talking about being entrepreneurs — whether they sell their work to a gallery or to a person or to an institution — it’s all part of the same conversation about value, and that’s the thing that a lot of artists I know and love are asking for.”
Getting a gallery up and running, for Clemons, is also a way to start having art all over the ConnCORP building, art that feeds into ConnCORP’s mission. He recalled how the 6th Dimension Afrofuturist art show on the upper floors of the building in the late summer and early fall brought a certain spirit to the place.
“I think ConnCAT, ConnCORP, and the bldg fund are Afrofuturism,” Clemons said. Afrofuturism “is the embodiment of what I’ve been thinking all along, but I don’t see what I think.” Art “allows me to see what I’m thinking.” In turn, ConnCAT, ConnCORP and the bldg fund “are manifesting the things that are needed,” and that art helps people perceive.
“We’re really interested in artists whose work is dealing with issues that our community is faced with. Not that challenging work can’t also be beautiful,” but “we’re not just trying to make this space pretty for people who are passing through. We really want art that provokes questions, dialogue, reflection, observations on the challenges our community faces.”
okoro also is excited to see what happens when artists are brought together, “what this will produce outside the space,” when artists “meet each other, connect, collaborate. Maybe there will be some public art somewhere that the bldg fund and ConnCORP can support. So for me it’s the beginning of a series of conversations that we can learn from. But we’re also responding to what we’ve heard.”
Visit the bldg fund’s website to apply for the open call for Orchid Gallery’s inaugural show; the call ends on Feb. 29. Artists with questions about the process can reach out through the@bldg.fund. The inaugural show will open this spring.