How long have you been doing art?

Ooh, how long have I been doing art?

Okay, well, I guess my whole life, I can say.

Sasa Akeel is a ceramics artist and poet based in Washington, D.C.

She graduated from Howard University in 2024.

In a year prior, the school offered her a unique opportunity to collaborate on a new sculpture exhibit

being developed for the Smithsonian American Art Museum called The Shape of Power, Stories of Race and American Sculpture.

The Curators of the Shape of Power were looking for students that they could discuss the exhibition,

specifically the interpretations side of the exhibition.

So that's like how it's going to be received by the public kind of the messages that the

curators want to make sure that they're getting across. So you kind of got an early look at it

and they wanted you to kind of interpret it and give them feedback as to how you received.

Yeah, exactly. I don't think I've ever seen a comprehensive, you know, sculpture exhibition and the way that this one is.

The stated mission of the exhibit is to examine the role of sculpture in understanding and constructing the concept of race in the United States.

It opened at the museum last November.

Well, fast forward to March.

President Trump quietly signed an executive order yesterday. They could change the face of the historic

Smithsonian Institute. This latest directive threatens funding for programs he claims advance

divisive narratives and improper ideology. In the executive order, Trump called out the shape of power exhibit directly.

He condemned it for stating that sculpture has been a powerful tool in promoting scientific racism,

that race is a human invention, and that the United States has used race to, quote,

establish and maintain systems of power, privilege, and disenfranchisement.

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