The Nuovi Arrivi [New Arrivals] exhibition in the Stanford Art & Art History Coulter Gallery synthesizes research and artistic production conducted by Jeannie Simms over seven years in Calabria Italy, exploring the intersections of economic injustice, community, identity and ecology. On display in the Coulter Gallery are a cyanotype textile, as big as a tree that was exposed by sunlight along the coast of the Strait of Messina, a large batik, a single-channel video, and a kinetic sculpture. The cyanotype was created in collaboration with poet Karamo Barrow, and Hawa Sima, both of whom emigrated separately to Italy from The Gambia. The textiles include phrases from Barrow’s poems that refer to open air travel with descriptions of the natural world and economic power imbalances.

The short video Nuovi Arrivi incorporates fragments of flora, fauna and tales of migratory movement and exchange in Reggio Calabria, an area simmering with environmental, economic and cultural change. Artificial aliveness is a kinetic installation of rising and falling water inside plastic bottles gleaned from ocean shores and waste piles around the world. 

Curator: Gabriel Harrison. Installation: Daniel Brickman

Photo credit for all Coulter Gallery exhibition documentation : Claire Haughey

Karamo Barrow, Hawa Sima and Jeannie Simms

Karamo wrote: to live a life somewhere under the light, 2018-2025. Cyanotype print on cotton with nylon backing; writing by Karamo Barrow. Karamo Barrow (writing, imagery), Hawa Sima (imagery), Jeannie Simms (concept, imagery). Dimensions: as big as a tree. 
Textiles finishing: Le Couturier House of Alternations

Jeannie Simms
Artificial Aliveness, 2025, mechanical device fabricated by Carl Sackrison, electric motor, steel; twelve plastic water bottles repositioned from various global sites, water from San Francisco Bay with freshwater runoff, repurposed pulleys, string. 
Dimensions variable.

Karamo Barrow, Mola Modoulamin Drammeh and Jeannie Simms
Before the rite, 2018-2025. Cotton, hand colored textile, nylon backing. Karamo Barrow (writing), Mola Modoulamin Drammeh (fabric coloring) and Jeannie Simms (concept). Dimensions: as big as 2 medium Nerium oleander bushes.
Textiles finishing: Le Couturier House of Alternations

Nuovi Arrivi, 2025, single channel HD video projection with sound, 13:53.

Thanks to: Luigi de Filippis, Stefano Calabrò, Coopisa, Comune di Sant’Alessio in Aspromonte, Laura Sammarco, “F,” Mohad El Assali, Valentina Tripepi, Sefora Longo, the sheep, the birds, the cats, the bees, the spiders, the dogs, the flowers, the trees, the ocean, the rain, the air, the sky above, the earth under our feet. With support from: School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University, Tufts Tisch College of Civic Life.

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Artworks made with Simms, Hawa Sima and Karamo Barrow, a poet from The Gambia, in Reggio Calabria, Italy. A site-specific large scale set of photo-sensitive cyanotype textiles, created at the end of a road where debris, building materials and consumer trash routinely wash ashore from the Strait of Messina. 2018-2025.  

Objects in exhibition are at the Stanford University Coulter gallery, Fall 2025.

Building materials that have washed ashore, fig leaves, reeds, rocks and organic matter were used to write the message: To live a life somewhere under the light. Originally excerpted from a poem by Karamo Barrow, consisting of descriptions of cruelties experienced on a long journey.

Items washed ashore on the Strait of Messina.