STEFFANI JEMISON
Untitled (Same Time / black bird)

September 25, 2026 – September 11, 2027

Moody Center for the Arts
Rice University

Opening Reception Friday, Sept 25 | 5–7 PM

Steffani Jemison’s Untitled (Same Time / black bird) is an installation that considers how living beings move through and inhabit shared spaces—shaped by boundaries, ownership, and ideas about who does and does not belong. The artist’s research into the often uneasy relationship between human and birds becomes the entry point into these larger questions, examining coexistence as negotiated through proximity and conflict. These dynamics become especially visible in the objects humans have developed to control where birds land, nest, and move. Bird spikes, reflective ribbons, holographic materials, predator decoys, and other commercial deterrents are designed to keep birds away from human-occupied spaces through illusions of light, movement, or appearance. Yet their effects can be unpredictable: birds frequently ignore or adapt to these devices, while the same qualities intended to repel them—shimmering surfaces, flashes of color—can be attractive to people. Jemison is drawn to these contradictions and to what they reveal more broadly about the ways humans divide space, determine access, and mark certain bodies as out of place.

For Off the Wall, Jemison brings these questions into a wall-length installation of eight lenticular prints mounted across a reclaimed theatrical backdrop. Depicting a generic American main street divided into distinct spaces—a bank, salon, and other businesses—the prop draws viewers into a scene that feels both recognizable and visibly artificial, carrying with it the assumptions that shape how such spaces are imagined and who or what belongs within them.

The exhibition is organized by Claudia Mattos, Associate Curator, Moody Center for the Arts.

To learn more, visit here.