Join us at Kirin Gallery, in partnership with the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, for a hands-on workshop exploring how history is recorded, preserved, and reclaimed through creative practice. Presented as part of the Recording Our Histories workshop series, this session invites participants to reflect on the power of personal storytelling and artistic expression in documenting lived experience.

This workshop is inspired by the Freedom Center’s recent acquisition of the personal memoir of Elleanor Eldridge, pictured below. Elleanor Eldridge was a free Black woman and nineteenth-century businesswoman and landowner. Her memoir inspired this community-centered workshop to invite participants to reflect on the power of individuals to document their own lives. Trudy Gaba, Social Justice Curator at the Freedom Center, will provide historical context on Elleanor Eldridge’s life and legacy, grounding the workshop in the importance of personal narratives during times of erasure and revisionism.

Participants will discover Suminagashi, the ancient Japanese art of water marbling, learning how to float inks on water to create intricate, flowing patterns that are transferred onto paper. Through experimentation with color, movement, and composition, attendees will create one-of-a-kind marbled works while exploring how acts of making can serve as tools for reflection, preservation, and storytelling. No prior experience necessary.  

All materials provided. 

Free gravel parking is available across from the building. 

Trudy Gaba walks through multiple worlds. She is a practicing visual artist who also works as a curator and historian, weaving together all of these identities into her praxis. Her artistic pursuits are driven by her research investigations into the archives and collections of Black history. She presently works as the Social Justice Curator at the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, where she tells stories about the profound ways people flourish in and fight back against oppressive and extractive systems that were never designed to see them succeed.

Trudy holds a master’s degree from the University of Edinburgh, where her research focused on the courtly arts of India— with a particular focus on illuminated manuscript painting from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Before joining the Freedom Center in 2023, she served as the Curatorial Assistant of South Asian Art, Islamic Art and Antiquities at the Cincinnati Art Museum for five years. There, she assisted the department in the acquisition, research and display of the museum's collections from South Asia, the Islamic World, the ancient Middle East and the ancient Mediterranean.

Kirin Gallery promotes and supports Asian and Asian American arts and artists. We host vibrant art, cultural and literary events. We are located within the Pendleton Art Center Annex. The Gallery participates in the monthly highly popular Final Friday art walks.