SAVANNAH WOOD, HARD TO GET AND DEAR PAID FOR, DIGITAL VIDEO, RUNTIME: 4:14, 2020

March First Friday is the perfect time to visit and explore Aurora’s newest exhibition, The Archive as Liberation, co-curated by Aaron Turner. Aurora is also a square on FAD’s March Madness Bingo Card, so make sure to ask about Aurora’s Memberships and sign up to win a free 8 x 10 Paper Negative Portrait Session!

RAYMOND THOMPSON JR., PORTAL #110.958, RAILROAD JUNCTION, NEW BERN, NC, ARCHIVAL INKJET PRINT, 20 X 16 INCHES, 2023

The Archive as Liberation features five artists who incorporate and re-contextualize material from various types of archives in their work. These artists recognize the power of archival photographic methods to connect and collapse tenses of time and experience, leading to important personal and cultural truths. Published as a book and exhibited at Silver Eye and Light Work in 2025, the 2026 Aurora installation of The Archive as Liberation, co-curated with Aaron Turner, features photography and video-based work by Andre Bradley, calista lyon, Raymond Thompson Jr., Harrison Walker, and Savannah Wood. Turner, writing in the opening essay of the eponymous book, describes the engagement with and care for other peoples’ materials in an archive as inherently empathetic, an action that implies a deep value and commitment to the lived experience of others. The five artists in The Archive as Liberation lay bare that beautiful empathy through their work.

The Archive as Liberation is on new at Aurora through April 17. Aurora is open to the public Thursday-Sunday, 11am-5pm, and by appointment. Email us at info@auroraphoto.org for an appointment or to arrange group tours.