Valerie Cassel Oliver is the Sydney and Frances Lewis Family Curator of Modern
and Contemporary Art at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Prior to her position
at the VMFA, she was Senior Curator at the Contemporary Arts Museum
Houston (2000-2017). At the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, Cassel
Oliver organized numerous exhibitions including the acclaimed Double
Consciousness: Black Conceptual Art Since 1970 (2005); Radical Presence:
Black Performance in Contemporary Art (2012) and major survey exhibitions for
Donald Moffett; Benjamin Patterson, Jennie C. Jones, Angel Otero and Annabeth
Rosen.

Her debut at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts was the critically acclaimed
retrospective entitled, Howardena Pindell: What Remains to be Seen co
organized with Naomi Beckwith (2018). In 2021, she opened the groundbreaking
exhibition, The Dirty South: Contemporary Art, Material Culture and the Sonic
Impulse that toured nationally. In 2023, she has organized the exhibition,
Dawoud Bey: Elegy that looks at the artist’s preoccupation with histories of place.
The work includes commissioned photographs of Richmond’s Historic Slave
Trail. Most recently, she organized the exhibition, “Ted Joans: Drawings from
Africa” (2024) that featured the complete portfolio of Joans’ drawings from 1956.

Cassel Oliver is the recipient of numerous fellowships and awards including
fellowships from the Getty Research Institute (2007) and the Center of Curatorial
Leadership (2009); the High Museum of Art’s David C. Driskell Award (2011); the
James A. Porter Book Award from Howard University (2018) as well as the Alain
Locke International Arts Award, Detroit Institute of Art; the College Arts
Association’s Excellence in Diversity Award; the Audrey Irmas Award for
Curatorial Excellence from the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College; and
Brandywine Workshop and Archives’ Lifetime Achievement Award (all 2022).
She was recently presented with an award of distinction from the American Folk
Art Society (2023) for her work to bring art from the African American South into
the collection of the museum. In October 2023, she was also tapped to curate
Spotlight, a section for the Frieze Masters Art Fair in London–a role she will
reprise this Fall.

Cassel Oliver holds an Executive MBA from Columbia University, New York; an
M.A. in Art History from Howard University in Washington, D.C. and, a B.S. in
Communications from the University of Texas at Austin. Beyond her curatorial
endeavors, she has previously worked in the field as a Program Officer at the
National Endowment for the Arts (1988-95) and as Director of the Visiting Artists
Program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (1995-2000)

Amber Esseiva is a Swiss-Senegalese-American curator and educator specialized in producing contemporary art exhibitions and programs by national and international mid-career and emerging artists. Esseiva is currently the Acting Senior Curator at the Institute for Contemporary Art at Virginia Commonwealth University (ICA VCU). A VCUarts alumna, Esseiva has been essential to the ICA’s programming since joining the institution in 2016. Esseiva served as the Curator-at-Large for The Studio Museum Harlem from 2022-2024.

Most recently, Esseiva curated the first contemporary art exhibition dedicated to the life and work of Amaza Lee Meredith titled Dear Mazie, (Sept 2024-March 2025). The exhibition includes commissions by AD-WO (Emanuel Admassu and Jen Wood), The Black School (Shani Peters and Joseph Cuillier), Lukaza Branfman-Verissimo, Kapwani Kiwanga, Abigail Lucien, Practise (James Goggin and Shan James), Tschabalala Self, and Cauleen Smith. Esseiva has also curated solo exhibitions by Kandis Williams, Naima Green, Jeremy Touissaint-Baptise, Dineo Seshee Bopape, Guadalupe Maravilla, and Martine Syms, among others. Other group exhibitions include Great Force (October 5, 2019 – January 5, 2020), the ICA’s exhibition featuring new commissions and recent work by an intergenerational group of 24 artists, exploring how art can be used to envision new forms of race and representation freed from the bounds of historic racial constructs.

Esseiva received her M.A. in 2015 from the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College (CCS Bard). She also co-founded the interdisciplinary curatorial journal aCCeSsions and was appointed the curator of the 2014 M.F.A. graduate thesis exhibition at Bard MFA Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts. She earned a B.A. in Art History from Virginia Commonwealth University.

Bessida Cauthorne White is a genealogist, community historian, and retired attorney. An activist for more than fifty years, her focus areas include African-American, women’s, and LGBTQ+ rights. She became the first black woman to sit on the bench in Virginia when appointed a substitute judge of the General District Court of the City of Richmond in 1983.

White has been a genealogist for more than forty years. She is the family historian for nine families and manages DNA results for more than forty family members and friends. She has presented at numerous state, regional, and national workshops and conferences, and has taught genealogy courses at Rappahannock Community College. White’s recent genealogy projects include the identification of the enslaved at Menokin and at Stratford Hall (both 18th century homes in Virginia’s Northern Neck), and their present-day descendants. For the past several years she has directed the research and application process for multiple historical markers that reference African American history in Eastern Virginia. White is co-founder and president of Middle Peninsula African-American Genealogical and Historical Society, and is a founder of the Greater Richmond Chapter of the Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society.

White is a founder of Virginia Association of Women Attorneys, Virginia Association of Black Women Attorneys, and Friends of African and African-American Art at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. She is president of the board of the Rappahannock Industrial Academy Alumni Association, an entity that preserves the legacy of one of Virginia’s early twentieth century Negro academies. She served on the board of the Black History Museum and Cultural Center of Virginia for more than twenty years and currently serves on the boards of the Middlesex County Museum & Historical Society and the Library of Virginia Foundation. She is the historian for Angel Visit Baptist Church, Dunnsville, Virginia, and chairs the church’s trustee board. The recipient of numerous awards at the local, state, and national level, in 2020 she was named by the Virginia Museum of History and Culture as one of Today’s Agents of Change.”

She is the co-editor of two family cookbooks and a church cookbook: A Reunion of Recipes: The White Family Cookbook; 1 st printing, 1990, 2 nd printing, 2007; Help Yourself! There’s A God’s Mighty Plenty: A Treasury of Recipes from the Cauthorne & Brooks Families, 1 st edition, 2000, 2 nd edition, 2017; and Gather at the Welcome Table: The Angel Visit Baptist Church Sesquicentennial Cookbook, 2016.

Duron Chavis is an urban farmer, activist, educator, and community organizer specializing in urban agriculture and food systems. Using his expertise, Chavis initiated the Richmond Noir Market and a series of community gardens and urban farms.

Richmond native Elvatrice Parker Belsches is a public historian, archival researcher, lecturer, author and filmmaker who lectures locally and nationally on the Black experience in history. She is the author of Black America Series: Richmond, Virginia (Arcadia Publishing), and eight (8) biographical entries to date for the African American National Biography (AANB), a collaborative publication of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University and Oxford University Press. She has also worked as a consultant under an NEH grant with Reynold Community College, and was awarded a grant in 2020 by Virginia Humanities to develop the script for a documentary on noted educator Virginia Randolph. Belsches served under the auspices of the art department led by Academy Award-winning production designer Rick Carter on Steven Spielberg's motion picture LINCOLN, where some of her contributions can be seen in both the trailer and the film.

Belsches’ awards include the Maggie L. Walker Heritage Award (2010) for her establishment of an earlier birth year for Mrs. Walker and the creation of the Historic Jackson Ward Podcast Tour commissioned by the Maggie L. Walker National Historic Site and the National Park Service.  In 2016 her three-part series, When Freedom Came, commissioned by The Richmond Free Press, was recognized as runner-up for the Journalistic Integrity and Community Service Award by the Virginia Press Association at their state conference.  She is a former faculty member at Hampton University where she earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees, and a graduate of the MCV/VCU School of Pharmacy. She has done additional graduate work in the graduate certificate program in public history at the University of Richmond.

Gary Flowers serves as faculty in the Valentine Museum tourism department, and offers walking tours of Historic Jackson Tour through the Walking the Ward Tour service. He has also acted as special assistant to Gov. Douglas Wilder, held the position of Vice President and Field Director of Jesse Jackson's Rainbow PUSH Coalition, and served as executive director of the Old Dominion Bar Association. In addition to his other roles and appointments, he hosts the Gary Flowers Show from DC's WOL 95.9FM.

The founder and president of Elegba Folklore Society, Inc., Omilade (oh mee-lah-DEH) Janine (jan [like tan] neen) Bell is an artist, a folklorist, cultural  historian, a producer and an arts administrator. From its downtown  Richmond, Virginia cultural center, the Society is an African-centered cultural  arts and education non-profit that intends to strengthen connections within  the African Diaspora. Bell created and produces the Society’s annual events  including Black Book Expo: A Conscious Literary Festival, Juneteenth: A  Freedom Celebration, the Down Home Family Reunion, A Celebration of  African American Folklife, and the Capital City Kwanzaa Festival. Elegba  Folklore Society also offers a menu of cultural history tours including, In the  Beginning… Virginia, Along the Trail of Enslaved Africans, among other  excursions, that Ms. Bell created and interprets in ensemble. The Society  presents performances of African dance, music and theatre at home and on  tour as well as engagement in the visual arts and material culture, where Ms.  Bell performs and curates. Elegba Folklore Society is operating in its 35th  year. 

Ms. Bell holds a degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  She is a recipient of UNC’s Harvey E. Beech Outstanding Alumna Award, the  Teresa Pollak Prize for Excellence in the Arts, the Belle Women in the Arts  Award, the 2019 Richmond History Maker Award, recognition as a 2020  Person of the Year by the Richmond Times-Dispatch, a recipient of the 2022  Martin Luther King, Jr. Community Leaders Award for Arts & Culture, a  Virginia Museum of Fine Arts’ 2023 RVA Community Maker, Richmond  Region Tourism’s 2024 BLK RVA Cultural Preservation Award and the 2025  Commonwealth Humanities Award for Community Partner Excellence. She is  a member of Delta Sigma Theta. 

From the Yoruba (YOUR - ruh - bah) cosmology of West Africa, Elegba is the  Orisa (or – REE - shah), or intercessor, who opens the roads bringing clarity  out of confusion. Elegba Folklore Society hopes its programs and services are  indeed road-opening experiences for its audiences.