Pronounced "sheh-hera-ZAHD"​

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      For two and a half years and over the course of thirteen exhibitions, Sheherazade was a socially engaged space in a grimy old Louisville garage where local and national artists could expand their practices with site-specific and non-commercial projects. It was a deliberate incubator for collaboration, performance, and experimentation.

 

Sheherazade was never meant to be sustainable, it was only meant to be vital in the time that it had. 

 

As Sheherazade pulls back from the art scene, I won’t be pulling back from trying to make our city a better place, including checking my privileges and leveraging them when and where I can to support and create empowered space for historically oppressed people. The civil uprising over racial injustice that has taken place in our city over the past 36 days has been awe-inspiring to witness. I am humbled by the brave and poetic acts on display in our streets by the leaders of this important movement to lift up Black lives. There are so many more ways than one to be an artist.

 

My gratitude goes out to all of our artists, whose work and statements will remain on this website. We'll also keep up our social media, so we'll see y'all over there.

 

Infinite thanks to: Chris Martian Leidner, our fellow Old Louisville neighbors (the renters), Bellwether Collective, Sarah Cissell, Emmaly Saliga, Andrew Smith, Joe Frey,  Kertis Creative, Great Meadows Foundation, Tiger Strikes Asteroid New York,  Shohei Katayama, and our friends and family. Thanks to everyone that made the effort to show up to one of our openings that weren’t well advertised and were hard to find on a dark and dingy Magnolia Avenue night. Trust me when I say that if I saw your face at one of our openings, it meant a lot to me and I won’t forget it. 

 

There may be another chapter in the Sheherazade story someday, but for now, we’re out.

 

XO,

 

Julie Leidner

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Sheherazade was a non-commercial, experimental project space for artists. The installations were intended to be viewable night and day through a garage window on Magnolia Avenue in Louisville, Kentucky.

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1401 South 3rd Street 

Louisville, KY 40208

Garage door faces Magnolia Avenue

(between 2nd and 3rd Streets)

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