A Panel Discussion "Vast Enough to Hold Us: Blackness, Creativity, and the Work of Healing" featuring an all-star panel will be held September 27, 1PM to 3PM at our viewing room.
Moderated by Rice’s Erika Thompson, and featuring Houston City Controller Chris Hollins, U of H’s Dr. Edward Scott, and artists Rontaye Butler and Anthony Suber.
This conversation, inspired by Anthony Suber’s art exhibit "As Vast As We Need It to Be", centers on the ingenuity, resourcefulness, and creativity Black people bring to the pursuit of mental health and community strength. Panelists will share how lived experience and history shapes their work, from addressing stigma around mental wellness to designing creative solutions that serve as anchors for their communities. The discussion will highlight how art and innovation become tools of resistance, resilience, and transformation—laying blueprints for a future where Black communities thrive from the inside out.
“We are very excited to close Anthony’s record-breaking exhibit with this very important discussion,” said gallery owner Nicole Longnecker. “Not only has Anthonys 'Black Man’s Project’ ask important questions through art, but now we are pleased to bring some of Houston’s most dynamic African-American men together to discuss what it means to survive and thrive in these volatile times."
ANTHONY SUBER Anthony Suber is a Texas-born multi-disciplinary artist based in South Texas. He holds a BFA from the University of Houston and an MFA from Houston Christian University. Suber’s practice spans exhibitions, public projects, and multi-layered activations presented nationally and internationally, including the Museum of Contemporary Art in Thessaloniki, Greece; Project Row Houses; Tinney Contemporary in Nashville; the University Museum at Texas Southern University; Art is Bond Gallery; and the Houston Museum of African American Culture. His solo exhibitions include Red Bud Arts Center, LRT Gallery, and Cindy Lisica Gallery, and Nicole Longnecker Gallery in Houston, Texas.
In addition to his studio work, Suber is a Professor of Art at the University of Houston’s Kathrine G. McGovern College of the Arts and serves as Creative Director of The Blackman Project, a nonprofit addressing art and mental health. His work has been featured in Arts and Culture Texas, Glasstire, The Houston Chronicle, and Free Press Houston. Suber is the recipient of the 2022 Artadia Award and the 2025 BANF Award.
ERIKA THOMPSON Panel Moderator Erika Thompson is Associate Director of the Rice University Center for African and African American Studies (CAAAS). A collaborative effort between Rice’s schools of humanities and social sciences, CAAAS serves as the university’s main hub for curriculum and research on Africa and the African diaspora by fostering interdisciplinary scholarship and programming. It serves as a nexus for critical discussions, innovative research and community outreach, addressing essential topics such as race, racism and diasporic histories and identities.
Thompson previously served as community liaison for the African American History Research Center at the Gregory School within the Houston Public Library system. Her background includes positions at the National Archives and Records Administration in Washington and the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site in Atlanta.
Thompson holds a master’s degree in Africana studies from Cornell University and a master’s (all but dissertation) in American studies from the University of Maryland.
CHRIS HOLLINS Chris Hollins is a native Houstonian who has served as Houston City Controller since January 2024.
As the independently elected Chief Financial Officer of the nation’s fourth-largest city, Controller Hollins provides oversight of a budget exceeding $7 billion and manages the City’s $6 billion investment and $15 billion debt portfolios.
Prior to his service as City Controller, Hollins led the 2020 elections effort in Harris County as County Clerk, gaining national acclaim for protecting and expanding voting rights for 2.5 million Houston-area voters during the most important election of our lifetime. Hollins’s innovations – which included drive-thru voting, 24-hour voting, online mail ballot tracking, and tripling the number of early voting centers – led to eye-popping record voter turnout despite the ongoing global pandemic.
Hollins holds a Bachelor of Arts with Phi Beta Kappa honors from Morehouse College and completed a joint program with Yale Law School and Harvard Business School, earning both his Juris Doctor and Master of Business Administration degrees. Hollins is admitted to the State Bar of Texas and Federal Courts for the Southern District of Texas. Before being elected Houston City Controller, he was the Principal Attorney at Hollins Law Group PLLC. Hollins spent the bulk of his career as a management consultant where he was dedicated to helping large government agencies transform their operations to better achieve their missions and meet the needs of those they were entrusted to serve.
Hollins and his wife, Morgan, live in Houston’s Third Ward with their daughter, Vivian, and their son, George. The Hollins family attends Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church.
DR. EDWARD D. SCOTT Dr. Edward Scott Jr. joined the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work in July 2022 as an assistant professor. He is both an applied developmental scientist and a clinical social worker whose research focuses on adolescent identity, sociopolitical development, and psychosocial wellbeing. Dr. Scott is an interdisciplinary scholar who uses innovative, critical approaches to qualitative inquiry while drawing on scholarship from Civil Rights Studies, Black political thought, gender and sexuality studies, sociology, legal studies, and education research.
He currently serves as principal investigator for the Making Justice Project, a research study centering the lives and developmental experiences of Black adolescent social justice activists throughout the United States. The goal of the Making Justice Project is to share the stories of Black youth activists while highlighting strategies for effectively cultivating, supporting, and sustaining their political engagement and mental health.
Dr. Scott’s research is informed by a decade of social work practice experience, which focused on serving urban youth in educational and community-based nonprofit settings. He also is a proud alumnus of the Council on Social Work Education’s Minority Fellowship Program and the Southern Regional Education Board’s Doctoral Scholars Program.
RONTAYE “TAY” BUTLER Tay Butler is a multi-disciplinary visual artist based in Houston, TX. He received his BFA in Photography and Digital Media from the University of Houston and completed his Photography MFA at the University of Arkansas. After retiring from the US Army and abandoning a middle-class engineering career to search for purpose, Tay reignited a rich appreciation for Black history and a deep obsession with the Black archive. Through collage, photography, drawing, video, sound, performance and large-scale installation, Tay utilizes past histories and imagery to create new understandings of the present while imagining a brighter future.
Tay's solo exhibitions and installations include A Friendly Game of Basketball, Lawndale Art Center, Houston, The Triangle, Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, RE.Migrant I & II at Project Row Houses, Houston, TX and We Are Still Searching at the Louise J. Moran Fine Arts Courtyard, Houston TX. His work has been featured in group showings for Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, ArtPace, San Antonio, TX and the landmark exhibition Multiplicity: Blackness in Contemporary American Collage for Frist Art Museum, Nashville, TN. He has collaborated with the Houston Rockets, Coca-Cola, amongst many others. His awards include the Individual Artist Fellowship from the Arkansas Arts Council, the Idea Fund grant from Diverse Works, and First Prize in the 2019 Citywide African-American Artists Exhibition at TSU. He currently teaches Art & Design at San Jacinto College, and has also led over 70 public and private workshops for many institutions from Crystal Bridges Museum, Arkansas to The Center for Fine Art Photography, Colorado.