Art Exhibits @Phoenix Cafe

December 2025-February 2026

Artist Resident

Colleen McGregor

At the heart of my work is a simple truth: when we tell our stories, we rise. Through film, poetry, and embodied practices, I trace the moments when lives are cracked open by change — and how, in the space after the breaking, something luminous emerges.

My films follow people standing at these thresholds: mothers navigating the fierce tenderness of early motherhood, communities facing the long shadow of an epidemic, young musicians in New Orleans finding their song again after the storm. These stories are not defined by what was lost — but by what was created in the aftermath. They are portraits of human beings becoming something new, often quietly, often against the odds.

I see storytelling as a form of alchemy — turning pain into power, silence into song, and endings into beginnings. Through my residency at RISEilience, I continue this exploration, weaving film, movement, and healing practices to create spaces where story becomes medicine, where communities remember their strength, and where, like the Phoenix, we rise together from the ashes.