Tiger Strikes Asteroid Greenville is excited to present: Surviving the Burn; Room to Breathe, our next exhibition by Durham-based multidisciplinary artist Derrick Beasley. The exhibition explores a speculative future shaped by a reframed Black masculinity - one that exists in a deep, reciprocal relationship with the non-human world. Spanning painting, sculpture, photography and film, Beasley maps a future where people have embraced ways of being that challenge expected ideas of survival and identity. The exhibition asks - and answers - who survives “the burn” - and how communities adapt, resist, and thrive in its aftermath. Room to Breathe is informed by histories and fictions of fugitivity and marronage, particularly within North Carolina and other wetland geographies. These layered narratives intersect with contemporary social justice organizing efforts that operate from a world-building perspective. The work in this exhibition blends speculative technologies, cultural artifacts, and the persistence of Southern cultures, encouraging viewers to rethink survival as transformation, rooted in community, history, and care. 

Derrick Beasley is an artist living in Durham, NC. Beasley’s work includes sculpture, photographic collage, painting and social practice to immerse viewers in the speculative vision and material reality of the world he is designing. Beasley is a graduate of North Carolina A&T State University Sociology program and the Georgia State University Masters in Public Administration Program. He uses this background and his 20 years of experience as an organizer, educator and his deep commitment to being in right relationship with the non-human world to shape his art practice and overall engagement with community.

The exhibition was supported by TSA GVL member Sterling Bowen.