Case Study: Many Tongues™ — A Multimedia Storytelling Exhibition
Curated and Hosted by: Brittini Ward
Presented by: Eye N Eye LLC
Location: High Society | 12826 Livernois | Detroit, MI 48221
Dates: November–December 2025
Overview
Many Tongues™ is an immersive storytelling exhibition curated and hosted by Brittini Ward, founder of Eye N Eye LLC. This multi-activation showcase explores how story moves across disciplines—through food, poetry, comedy, film, visual art, fashion, and performance—to celebrate narrative as a living, breathing art form.
Set within High Society Lounge in Detroit, the exhibition transforms the space into a multisensory landscape where audiences are invited to listen, taste, witness, and remember. Each activation represents a different “language” of storytelling, reflecting how Detroit’s creative community embodies story not just through words, but through craft, ritual, rhythm, and connection.
Vision and Purpose
As a poet and lifelong storyteller, Brittini Ward created the DPA to honor the community that first held her words. After returning home from college, she found refuge and purpose in Detroit’s open mics and storytelling spaces — witnessing the city’s poets as both historians and healers. The project emerged from a desire to record what has too often gone undocumented: the elders, collectives, and creative spaces that have defined the Detroit Poetry Scene.
The DPA is a cultural preservation strategy, love letter, and narrative intervention. It acknowledges the artists who laid the groundwork, names the wounds and tensions that have shaped the scene, and offers future poets guidance rooted in reflection and respect. Its purpose is simple yet sacred — to tell our story before someone else does.
Exhbition Concept
Many Tongues™ is designed as an immersive, multi-week experience where each event functions as both art and archive. The exhibition honors the idea that every voice—spoken, tasted, danced, drawn, or projected—carries the power to heal, disrupt, restore, and connect.
Throughout its duration, guests encounter curated activations inspired by local artists, including food tastings, live comedy sets, fashion talks, short films, performance poetry, and visual installations.
The exhibition features canvas art and spoken word by curator Brittini Ward alongside new works and performances by Detroit-based creatives, creating a vibrant tapestry of narrative exchange and cultural reflection.
Why Many Tongues™ Matters
In a world where narratives are often confined by medium or expectation, Many Tongues™ intentionally breaks down those boundaries. The exhibition amplifies Detroit’s tradition of cross-disciplinary storytelling, celebrating artists who practice narrative in nonlinear, embodied, and collective ways.
It reminds us that storytelling is not only entertainment—it is ceremony, continuity, and care. Each activation within Many Tongues™ becomes a site for reflection, healing, and community building, deepening Detroit’s creative ecosystem while preserving its legacy of communal art-making.
Panelists
Brittini Ward (Moderator) — Multidisciplinary artist, poet, and cultural strategist; founder of Eye N Eye LLC and creator of Many Tongues™, Baba Juke™, and the Detroit Poetry Archive.
Josmine Evans — Chef and storyteller behind Indigo Culinary Co., preserving African diasporic foodways through narrative cuisine.
JeCorey Hawkins — Comedian and founder of Good Set Comedy, whose humor transforms lived experience into collective release.
LaMarr Ward — Film director and founder of Aquarian Age Productions, blending science fiction and ancestral myth.
Mikaela “Miki” Evans — Upcycle artist and creative producer behind BothRows and Rewear Revolution, linking sustainability and mental health through design.
Michelle “Mama Jahra” McKinney — Archivist and director at Detroit Sound Conservancy, griot, performer, and lifelong keeper of Detroit’s musical legacy.
Impact and Reflection
Many Tongues™ is more than an exhibition—it is an act of ancestral reverence and cultural stewardship.
Through this work, Brittini Ward assumes the role of story keeper, preserving the memory of those no longer physically with us but whose artistry, labor, and love continue to shape Detroit’s creative lineage.
By blending performance, dialogue, and ritual, the exhibition becomes a portal of remembrance—a space where audiences are invited to grieve through story and find healing in shared memory. Every activation honors the continuum of voices that made it possible for new stories to exist, acknowledging that creative expression itself is a form of mourning, celebration, and reclamation.
Through its four activations, Many Tongues™:
Bridges disciplines, showing how story moves through food, laughter, art, and fashion.
Centers communal healing, making the act of storytelling both personal and collective.
Transforms grief into guidance, offering creative space to process loss, lineage, and legacy.
Strengthens Detroit’s creative ecosystem, connecting emerging and established storytellers.
Honors ancestors as collaborators, grounding contemporary creation in historical memory.
As Brittini reflects:
“I have chosen to be the keeper of the stories—
not just for the living, but for those who paved the path before us.
Story is how we grieve, how we remember,
and how we stay alive together.”
Many Tongues™ ultimately affirms that storytelling is ceremony—a gathering of spirits, sounds, and senses that keeps our collective heartbeat intact.
