'The Axe Forgets But The Tree Remembers' Exhibition

The AUDELCO and Obie Award-winning Billie Holiday Theatre is artistic anchor to the largest African American community in the nation: Central Brooklyn and one of the last remaining theaters forged in the aesthetic and sociocultural kiln of America’s Civil Rights/Black Arts Movements. Founded in May 1972, The Billie Holiday Theatre is a beacon for world class art rooted in racial justice in the heart of Bed-Stuy: producing, presenting, and commissioning new and classic works and festivals in theater, dance, music, visual arts, and film; providing artistic and institutional residencies; and serving ages 3 to 103 with educational programming. For bold and daring artists and audiences from around the corner and around the world who look to The Billie as a rigorous artistic space that tackles racial injustices, presents new and unapologetic voices, and imagines a world where all people can flourish...welcome home.

The Billie Holiday Theatre

Opening night reception for 'The Axe Forgets But The Tree Remembers' art exhibition.

The Axe Forgets, But the Tree Remembers is an exhibition about memory, harm, and the uneven weight of experience. Borrowing its title from the proverb, the work explores how violence, injustice, and neglect are often carried differently by those who inflict harm and those who endure it. The axe cuts and moves on, its action purposeful, normalized, even justified as “just doing its job.” But the tree remembers. It holds the wound, the scar, the altered shape of what it once was. The impact lingers long after the moment of damage has passed. Through this body of work, the exhibition reflects on personal and collective histories, asking viewers to consider who is allowed to forget and who is forced to remember. It speaks to inherited trauma, systemic harm, and the quiet resilience of those who carry marks that are invisible to others. Presented at The Billie Holiday Theatre, The Axe Forgets, But the Tree Remembers invites audiences to sit with discomfort, reckon honestly with the past, and recognize that healing begins not with forgetting but with remembrance.

Our {communityGuidelinesLink} describe the sort of content we prohibit on Eventbrite. If you suspect an event may be in violation, you can report it to us so we can investigate.

To report other categories of prohibited or illegal content, submit {link}