Cut Out the Tongue: Curated Exhibition by Alexis Özden

On view from Sunday, November 23rd - Sunday, January 18th. 

Cut Out the Tongue is a mixed-media exhibition curated by Alexis Özden that showcases Queer artists with Southwest Asian and North African backgrounds. This show emphasizes the individual reclamation of cultural resistance through art, providing perspective on community, spirituality, and queerness, in direct opposition to the colonial model.

Queen of Palestine by Ali El-Chaer - Gold, 18″x24″, Screen print and gold leafing, 2024

Ali El-Chaer (b. 1995, they/he) is a trans diasporic Palestinian writer, illustrator, and artist, currently living in Nashville, TN. They received their bachelors in fine arts at Austin Peay State University in 2018 and is a MFA for Design candidate at Rutgers University. They have shown in numerous group exhibitions, including: Moving, Transfer at the Art Academy of Cincinnati, OH (2024); Watermelon Seeds at Begonia Labs at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN (2024);  We Are Sorry to Inform You That, curated by Adele Jarrar for MNFA gallery in Amman, Jordan (2022);  Queer Identity at the The Dirty Spread Collective, Bristol, UK (2022); The Divine: Beyond the Bounds of Queerness at the Nepantla Cultural Arts Gallery, Seattle, WA (2022). They were also selected as a resident artist for the Bethany Artist Community in New York in 2024 and he was selected by South Arts to represent Tennessee as a fellow for the 2024-2025 National Leader of Color cohort by Arts Lead.

Alexis Özden, curator

Alexis Özden (Öz) is an organizer, poet, and mixed-media artist who explores generational trauma, somatic healing, and gender expression in their work. Öz currently facilitates the Nashville Radical Library, which is a free lending library located at Random Sample that provides the Nashville community with access to radical literature. Öz also routinely hosts and participates in communal discussions and spoken-word events that take place throughout the city, namely in association with WXNA-101.5 FM, the Nashville Poetry Library, and the Porch. They hold memberships with Nour Nashville, the 11:11 Art Collective, and Buchanan Arts.

The opening reception will be Sunday, November 23rd from 6-9 PM. There will be henna artists tattooing hands during the event.

Henna art by Sri