The John and Geraldine Lilley Museum of Art at the University of Nevada, Reno, proudly welcomes artist Ayana V. Jackson in conversation with author Roxane Gay, on Saturday, April 4, 2026, at 6 p.m., at the Harlan O & Barbara R. Hall Recital Hall at the University of Nevada. The event is free to attend, but space is limited and registration is required. Parking for the event is free at the Brian J. Whalen Parking Complex. 

This public conversation will examine the role of textiles, portraiture and history to explore an ever-expanding narrative around Black women and the African diaspora in the photographic practice of Ayana V. Jackson.

“Jackson’s work is filled with layers of information and meaning. Her composed photographs invite viewers to examine the history of representation in photography, particularly that of the Black female body,” Stephanie Gibson, director and chief curator of the Lilley Museum of Art, said.  “As one of our foremost feminist thinkers, writer Roxane Gay is creatively adept at deconstructing stories, offering a transdisciplinary perspective on Black identity and representation. I’m so excited to hear this conversation.” 

This conversation event coincides with the Lilley Museum of Art exhibition, “Ayana V. Jackson: 2013-23”, co-curated by Stephanie Gibson and visual storyteller Iyana Esters. The exhibition runs through May 23, 2026.

The exhibition and programming are supported by Pamela Joyner and Fred Giuffrida.

The Lilley Museum of Art is always free and open to the public. Visitors are welcome Tuesday through Saturday, from noon to 4 p.m. Program information can be found on our webpage. 

About the speakers: 

Roxane Gay is an award-winning author, editor, professor and cultural critic. The New York Times bestselling author has written six critically acclaimed books, including the instant classic Bad Feminist (2014), the memoir Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body (2017), which The New York Times hailed as “luminous…intellectually rigorous and deeply moving,” and the essay collection Opinions: A Decade of Arguments, Criticism and Minding Other People’s Business (2024), which Booklist called “a must-read for not only fans of Gay’s work, but for everyone interested in reading intellectual, accessible and important takes on timely topics.” 

Gay has also authored two short story collections, Difficult Women (2017) and Ayiti (2018), the novel An Untamed State (2014), and edited multiple acclaimed and best-selling anthologies including The Portable Feminist Reader for Penguin Classics (2025), Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture (2019), and The Selected Works of Audre Lorde (2020). Gay was the first Black woman to lead a Marvel title, writing the comic series World of Wakanda. 

A Guggenheim Fellowship recipient, Gay is a contributing opinion writer for The New York Times, where she wrote the Work Friend column. Her work can also be found in The Guardian, Virginia Quarterly Review, Harper's Bazaar, McSweeney's and many other publications. She holds an endowed professorship at Rutgers University and has also taught at Purdue and Yale. She is currently at work on film and television projects and runs her own publishing imprint, Roxane Gay Books.

Ayana V. Jackson lives and works between Brooklyn, NY and Johannesburg, South Africa. She uses archival impulses to assess the impact of the colonial gaze on the history of photography. 

By using her lens to deconstruct 19th and early 20th century portraiture, Jackson questions photography’s authenticity and role in perpetuating socially relevant and stratified identities. Jackson’s work is collected by major international institutions including The Studio Museum in Harlem (New York, New York), The Newark Museum (Newark, New Jersey), J. P. Morgan Chase Art Collection (New York, New York), Princeton University Art Museum (Princeton, New Jersey), The National Gallery of Victoria (Melbourne, Australia), The Museum of Contemporary Photography (Chicago, Illinois) and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (Seattle, Washington). Jackson was a 2014 New York Foundation for the Arts Fellow for Photography and the recipient of the 2018 Smithsonian Fellowship. 

The Lilley Museum of Art is supported by the College of Liberal Arts, GSA, ASUN, the Lilley Museum of Art Director’s Circle and Friends of the Lilley. Program support comes from the John Ben Snow Foundation. 

Founded in 1971 and renamed in 2019, the John and Geraldine Lilley Museum of Art houses a permanent collection of approximately 3,000 works. Through exhibitions and public programming, the Lilley Museum of Art advances the University’s educational mission by fostering dialogue, experimentation and critical inquiry through the visual arts.