Titled Derrick Adams: ON, the exhibition included collages, sculptures, and lampshades that evoked characters from popular movies and TV shows like In Living Color and The Matrix.

[8] A series of collages in the exhibition, Orbiting Us #1-#10, depicted items designed by Charles Harrison, the first Black executive at Sears, Roebuck and Company.

Titled Sanctuary, Adams's show featured an installation environment structured by a miniaturized highway that ran through the galleries, passing collages that evoked locations listed in the guidebook.

[10] Sanctuary celebrated the leisure time and success of African Americans even during the Jim Crow era, partly illuminated by small houses resembling milk cartons.

Adams says about the exhibition, "Parks' influence…goes beyond the visual, into the meaning and purpose of why I feel it's so important to show the many facets of black American life in ways that shed light onto the complexity and richness of our past, present and future.

The art work in the series depicts the main characters, Cookie and Lucious Lyon (played by Taraji P. Henson and Terrence Howard), and is part of a real-life limited-edition collection of objects, "Empire x Derrick Adams collection", which supports Turnaround Arts, an arts-based school program at the Kennedy Center.

[16] in 2019 Adams was commissioned by the MTA (Metropolitan Transportation Authority) to create laminated glass artwork for the Nostrand Avenue Station.