It included artists such as Dindga McCannon, Kay Brown, Faith Ringgold, Carol Blank, Jerri Crooks, Charlotte Kâ (Richardson), and Gylbert Coker.
Where We At was formed in the spring of 1971 after an exhibition of the same name organized by 14 Black women artists at the Acts of Art Gallery in Greenwich Village.
The group organized workshops in schools, jails and prisons, hospitals, cultural centers, and art classes for youth in their communities.
While several individual female artists, including Elizabeth Catlett, Faith Ringgold, Inge Hardison, Lois Mailou Jones, and Betye Saar, gained national attention, most practicing Black women artists in New York found it difficult to find venues for their work in White-run galleries and museums.
[4] WWA was held at the Acts of Art Gallery (1969–74) owned by Nigel Jackson located on Charles Street in the West Village.
With the Weusi artists, Brown developed her painting techniques and learned the craft of relief printmaking and mixed-media collage.
The show, entitled Where We At: Black Women Artists: 1971, is often cited as the first group show of Black women artists ever held, though an exhibition precedes it held the previous year at Gallery 32 in Los Angeles featuring organizer Suzanne Jackson, Gloria Bohanon, Betye Saar, Senga Nengudi (then Sue Irons), and Eileen Nelson (then Abudulrashid).
[6] It was funded by the Brooklyn Educational and Cultural Alliance, the New York State Council on the Arts, the Presbyterian Church Committee for the Self Development of People and America the Beautiful Foundation.
It referred to a general "earthiness" to the show, as demonstrated by the fact that at the exhibition's opening, the artists served cooked food to the visitors, departing from the traditional wine and cheese.
Brown served as president and executive director, and as a team, the group took on the responsibility of targeting various sites for WWA art exhibitions.
[2] In addition, the WWA created an apprenticeship workshop for youth in Brooklyn that taught graphic design, illustration, and media skills, as well as painting, ceramics, crochet, and macramé.
In the winter of 1972, they held the Cookin' and Smokin exhibition at the Weusi-Nyumba Ya Sanaa Gallery (later the Weusi Academy of Art).
[3] According to Brown, the tensions between the Black and White women's communities were evident in a series of joint exhibitions produced by the National Conference of Women in Visual Arts (NCWVA) and the WWA artists at selected showplaces in Greenwich Village, SoHo, the East Village, and the midtown area.
The exhibition series was intended to demonstrate a form of "unity" between all women artists independent of race, age, or class.