Indigo Arts Alliance and the Maine Museum of Innovation, Learning and Labor Present (E)mergence
An Interdisciplinary Exhibition of Four Indigo Arts Alliance Artists
Examining the Social and Environmental Impact of the Textile Industry
On View, November 13, 2026 – April 4, 2027
Maine MILL
1 Beech St, Lewiston, ME 04240
Awon Iya Alaye: The owners of the Earth by Stephen Hamilton, 2020. Acrylic, natural dyes, pigments on wood, hand-dyed muslin, and handwoven cotton cloth.
Portland, ME – September 24, 2026 – Opening November 13, 2026, Indigo Arts Alliance is pleased to announce (E)mergence, an exhibition of Indigo Arts alumni at the Maine Museum of Innovation, Learning and Labor (Maine MILL). (E)mergence will feature works by Rosalba Breazeale (‘23), Stephen Hamilton (‘25), Eleanor Kipping (‘25), and Liz Rhaney (‘23) that examine the impact of textile production on industrialization, labor, and the environment.
“We are thrilled to platform the creative contributions of IAA alumni artists beyond the walls of our Portland-based studios,” shared Ashley Page, Program and Studio Manager at Indigo Arts Alliance. “Partnering with Maine MILL grants the exhibiting artists the opportunity to complicate, expound upon and give voice to Maine’s industrial history in entirely new ways.”
Together, the four artists create a body of work that complicates our relationship to clothing, textile goods and the plants they derive from. Rosalba Breazeale is an experimental photographer and fiber-based artist who creates site-specific works referencing the land, ocean, and botanicals. Her photographs meditate on place, migration, and diasporic identity. Stephen Hamilton traces the movement of people, techniques, and ideas through hand-dyed, woven, painted, sewn, and foraged textiles informed by his training in West African and Yorùbá traditions. Eleanor Kipping’s multidisciplinary work references her familial relationship to Maine to illuminate the state’s often-overlooked histories as an economic center for Black maritime families. Liz Rhaney works in photography, video, performance, and installation to consider how the global impacts of migration, labor and commerce affect a community through time and space.
Maine MILL and Indigo Arts Alliance share a commitment to exploring people, place, creativity, and community, and to expanding the ways we understand Maine’s industrial and cultural history. This collaboration brings together Maine MILL’s mission to explore the stories that shape Maine, with Indigo Arts Alliance’s mission of amplifying black and brown artists, stories, and histories.
An opening reception will be held on November 12 at 5pm. For more information, please visit mainemill.org.
About Indigo Arts Alliance
Addressing the underrepresentation of Black and Brown artists–Maine-based and worldwide– IAA is an arts incubator in Portland, Maine, that provides space for dialogue and exchange between artists of African descent and other communities of color through a multidisciplinary artist-in-residency program that embodies a Black-led approach to creativity, community-building, and mentoring. Artists come from a wealth of cultural heritages and multiple countries: African American/US, Belize, Bermuda, Brazil, Canada, Ethiopia, Gabon, Ghana, India, Jamaica, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Peru, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Sudan and Trinidad.
The organization is rooted in two principles: that art is a key resource for healthy human communities that should be cultivated and celebrated, and that artists play a unique role in strengthening our multiracial democracy. Actively contributing to the Global Black Arts Movement, Indigo Arts Alliance brings its principles to life through collaborations with national and international galleries, museums, and other venues, featuring exhibitions and performances by its AIRs, while also curating symposia and other community engagement activities.
About the Maine Museum of Innovation, Learning and Labor
Maine Museum of Innovation, Learning and Labor (Maine MILL) is a history and culture museum in downtown Lewiston, Maine, that celebrates extraordinary stories of work and industrial ingenuity. Through their collection, exhibits, educational programming, and events, they invite visitors to explore how life, labor, and culture shape the present and influence the future.
Their unique collection is made up of over 10,000 artifacts, including salvaged industrial machinery such as a Jacquard loom, original bedspreads and industrial-sized silkscreens from the famed Bates Manufacturing Company, and roughly 300 recorded interviews and oral histories from the people who lived and labored here. They also actively seek out ways to expand our offerings and are continuously adding to their collection to include a wider range of perspectives and experiences in order to tell the community’s whole story.
For images, further background, or interviews, please contact:
Katrina Stewart
Account Manager, Visual Arts
Blue Medium
T: +1-212-675-1800
katrina@bluemedium.com