Join us for an online discussion with 2020–21 Studio Museum artists in residence Widline Cadet, Genesis Jerez, Texas Isaiah, and Jacolby Satterwhite, moderated by Legacy Russell, former Associate Curator, Exhibitions, The Studio Museum in Harlem (now Executive Director and Chief Curator, The Kitchen), and Yelena Keller, Curatorial Assistant, Exhibitions. In celebration of the opening of (Never) As I Was: Studio Museum Artists in Residence 2020–21, hear the artists speak about their work created over the course of the residency program, a collaboration between MoMA PS1 and the Studio Museum.

In (Never) As I Was, each artist takes on the challenge of recharting the territories of domestic, social, and studio space to offer tender and lyrical explorations of family histories, spirituality, and memoir. Widline Cadet’s photo and video works examine intergenerational memory, selfhood, and erasure within the diasporic experience. Texas Isaiah creates a space for mourning, celebration, prayer, and remembrance, asserting the significance of imagination in the abolition of gender while exploring the healing capacity of rest as a place of connection. Genesis Jerez’s collaged paintings layer family photographs, oil paint, and charcoal to create works that interrogate her own personal histories and reckon with questions of diasporic fracture. Jacolby Satterwhite’s refocus on painting during the residency marked a shift inward: across these paintings, he engages fantasy as a mechanism for healing and a veil for trauma, flaying open a psychic space for transcendent possibility.

(Never) As I Was will be on view at MoMA PS1 beginning November 18th as part of a multiyear partnership between the two institutions while the Studio Museum constructs its new home on West 125th Street.