Racial Healing Immersion

A guided journey in racial healing.

This season we will launch an immersive exhibition that invites audiences to move beyond conversation and into the practice of racial healing. Minnesota has served as a global inflection point around racial disparities for years, but our ability to resist, restore, and repair is also a model for others as well. This experience will offer a rare opportunity to engage history, storytelling, reflection, and community in a shared healing-oriented space. Grounded in 50 years of award-winning artistic, educational, and healing work, the exhibition will illuminate racial healing as both a deeply personal process and a collective responsibility — one that can help shape the future we are striving to create together. Details to come.

“You have to act as if it were possible to radically transform the world. And you have to do it all the time.”
—Angela Davis, Activist, professor, and author

“We tend to think of healing as something binary. But healing and growth take place on a continuum, with innumerable points between utter brokenness and total health.”
—Dr. Resmaa Menakem, Therapist, author, and trauma specialist

“I believe that one of the most beautiful things about theater is that no one artist can do it alone.”
—Harrison David Rivers, Playwright and Penumbra company member

“You cannot use someone else’s fire. You can only use your own. And in order to do that, you must first be willing to believe that you have it.”
—Audre Lorde, Black feminist, lesbian, poet, mother, warrior

“You cannot give energy if you’re not on fire on the inside.”
—Rev. Jesse Jackson, American civil rights leader, Baptist minister, and political activist

“Within Penumbra's walls, a genuine spirit of care breathes and thrives, weaving a rich and tender atmosphere where creative courage is not just invited, but deeply embraced.”
—Lester Purry, Actor and Penumbra company member