This is continuance. In February 2020, artist M. Carmen Lane held a solo exhibition at Praxis Fiber Workshop, “AMALA: She Could Not Stay (In Their Black Bodies), an installation that examined “the relationship between loss, displacement, relocation and the cost of accumulated histories on black gendered bodies that birth.” The work attended to and visualized infant mortality data on the African-American population in Cuyahoga County through the construction of cradleboards made out of blue FEMA body bags. Shortly after its opening, the order was given to shelter in place. As the world collectively began to experience the COVID pandemic together, the meanings of these works changed.

“Topsy Turvy or Your Story Began Before You Were Born (and a note on Beirut)” opens on Wednesday, September 9th, 2026. 

This exhibition returns us to the conversation at the intersections of birth, place and death; the impact of the Great Migration on Black maternal health.

Through the lived practice of Stella Rush, a granny midwife from Missouri whose daughter died in childbirth after a move North, Rush’s story is held by textiles constructed during a digital weaving residency at Praxis in 2025; photography, assemblage and letterpress printmaking–with text deployed from Toni Morrison’s 1977 novel, “Song of Solomon” a stand-in for Rush.

Earlier this year, Lane traveled to Beirut, Lebanon carrying a mobile exhibition, “OF TIME,” in collaboration with an artist-run space in Achrafieh. The artist will include work as response; weaving the impact of accumulated racialized histories on Black bodies while also bearing witness to those whose bodies have absorbed the vibrations of war before and after they were born.

Prints from this exhibition will be available for purchase to support full scholarships for emerging birthworkers of color through a place based community doula training offered in partnership between ATNSC: Center for Art, Practice and Inquiry + Doula Trainings International.

Bio: M. Carmen Lane is a contemporary artist, birthworker and curator based in Cleveland, Ohio. Lane is the founder and director at ATNSC: Center for Art, Practice and Inquiry (formerly, Center for Healing and Creative Leadership), a transdisciplinary artist-run space, gallery and experiment in social practice sited in a multi-unit residential home in Cleveland’s Greater Buckeye neighborhood. They have been the recipient of several residencies, fellowships and awards including: the Joyce Awards, AIRIE Foundation, Art Matters Foundation and United States Artists. Lane has exhibited their work in museums and galleries including the Brattleboro Museum, the Cleveland Museum of Art, EFA Project Space, the Museum of the African Diaspora and SPACES.