The Book of Zero: indira allegra’s 2026 Jacob Lawrence Legacy Residency

The artist indira allegra spent January 2026 at the University of Washington’s Jacob Lawrence Gallery as this year’s Jacob Lawrence Legacy Resident. The work they made there became The Book of Zero, an exhibition on view from February 4 through April 4, 2026.

A residency in Lawrence’s name

The UW School of Art + Art History + Design started the residency in 2015. Each January it invites a Black artist, at any stage of their career, to turn the gallery into a working studio, and the new work then opens to the public as an exhibition. Residents are asked to think about their work in relation to Jacob Lawrence’s life and practice. Lawrence joined the school’s faculty in 1971, and the school dedicated the gallery to him in 1994.

The artist

allegra’s practice is rooted in performance and weaving and draws on grief, healing, doula work, and ecology. The gallery chose them for that range, for their interdisciplinary research, and for their commitment to site-specific work made with communities. They are the founder of Cazimi Studio.

Inside The Book of Zero

allegra built the exhibition from research into doula work, death care, and the cycles that bodies and environments pass through. Visitors moved through three rooms in sequence, following the left wall in a path that echoed those cycles. The work borrows the rhythm and repetition of sacred texts as it moves through endings toward renewal. Lawrence turned to scripture too, in his illustrations of the Book of Genesis.

allegra worked with students from the UW jazz program, and the animation in the show was made by Neely Goniodsky. Speaking with The Daily, allegra described the idea behind the title: “I don’t believe there’s any such thing as empty space.” Zero, for them, is a state open to whatever comes next.

The residency also opened allegra’s practice to the public through a guided meditation, the Community Sit, on February 6, and a Liberation Book Club session on February 17.

Categories: Events