“There Are Black People In Nebraska?!”
Adrian Armstrong

Big Medium

“There Are Black People In Nebraska?!” is the first installment of a series of multimedia shows exploring the black community in Omaha, Nebraska, and Armstrong’s first step into a world-building concept. 

As soon as I moved from Omaha to Texas, the main question that I got, and still get to this day, is, “There Are Black People in Nebraska?”. This took me by surprise because all through my life, I had always been surrounded by mostly black people. Like most cities, Omaha is segregated by historically oppressing laws which concentrated the black population mostly to the north side. — Adrian Armstrong

Big Medium is proud to present an exhibition that not only highlights Adrian Armstrong’s signature style of rendering his figures in ballpoint pen but one that also includes an interactive installation that recreates Goodies, the local corner store near his great-grandmother’s home in a small, vibrant northside neighborhood in Omaha. Through sourced materials from his hometown, headbands, Ecko tall tee’s, and children running around with “ball-balls” in their hair, he gives us a snapshot of this moment in his history, circa 1999-2003.

Adrian Armstrong invites us to see ourselves in these figures and realize that blackness is found blooming in every crevice. “There Are Black People In Nebraska?!” is a celebration of similarities and differences within the culture.

“There Are Black People In Nebraska?!” runs from October 22, 2022, through January 8, 2023.

Big Medium, 916 Springdale Rd. Bld 2 #101