Everything Is Connected

On this episode I’m joined by Hoor Al Qasimi during the opening week of the Sharjah Biennial 16. Al Qasimi is the President and Director Sharjah Art Foundation, an organization she founded in 2009 as a catalyst and advocate for the arts around the world. She has been the Director of Sharjah Biennial since 2002, an internationally recognized platform for contemporary artists, curators and cultural...

On this episode, I’m joined by Julien Creuzet, the Afro-descendant French Caribbean artist who has his first institutional solo exhibition on view now through June 1, 2025 at The Bell at Brown University in Providence Rhode Island.  In the episode Creuzet shares his artistic journey and passion for making exhibitions where he can have a discussion through art. His work spans various mediums includ...

 On this episode, I'm joined by Dr. Joy Simmons.  Dr. Joy Simmons  is a radiologist, art collector, and philanthropist. In this episode, she discusses her multifaceted engagement with the arts. Beyond simply acquiring works, Dr. Simmons supports an entire arts ecosystem from artists to small non profits to galleries and museums through her work, her stewardship, and her commitment. She emphas...

 On this episode, I'm joined by Shinique Smith.   Born in Baltimore, Maryland, and now Los Angeles based,  Shinique Smith is best known for her visual poetry,  monumental fabric sculptures, and paintings of calligraphy and collage that engage abstraction. Her work gained critical acclaim and widespread attention through her participation in important group exhibitions, including Frequency at...

On this episode I’m joined by Taylor Renee Aldridge.  Taylor Renee Aldridge is a writer and curator based in Detroit, Michigan. In 2014, with writer Jessica Lynne, she co-founded ARTS.BLACK , an online journal of art criticism from Black perspectives. In Fall 2024, she assumed the role of Executive Director at the Modern Ancient Brown Foundation .  In the episode we discuss her return to her nativ...

On this episode I’m joined by Ekow Eshun. Ekow Eshun is a writer, editor and curator, known for his work in arts, culture, and identity. In the episode we discuss his latest exhibition, The Time Is Always Now: Artists Reframe the Black Figure, on view through February 9 at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The show brings together over 60 contemporary works that unfold around three core themes: Doub...

We're back with another season of Everything is Connected in 2025!  Before we get started with a new season I just want to take a moment and say thank you to all of the listeners from all over the world. We had more listener-ship in 2024 across the globe than ever before. So thank you all. It's really such a joy and such a pleasure to be in company with you on this journey. Being in conv...

On this episode, I'm joined by Otobong Nkanga as we discuss her latest commission, Cadence, on view at the MoMA now through summer 2025. I first discovered her work when I wrote about her earlier this year for the summer issue of Sculpture Magazine. Otobong Nkanga, a multidisciplinary visual artist born in Nigeria and based in Antwerp, Belgium, explores themes of memory, identity, and the com...

On this episode I'm joined by Jammie Holmes as we discuss his work and practice; the journey that led him into art and the focus of his practice today.  His exhibition, Morning Thoughts, at Marianne Boesky Gallery is on view when we sit down to talk about his origin story and some of the ideas he’s investigating in his latest body of work.    Incorporating portraiture, symbolism, and written...

On this episode I'm joined by Kandy G Lopez as we discuss her practice on the eve of the closing of her two person show with Aminah Robinson at ACA gallery in Chelsea. In the exhibition viewers were presented with her mixed media, fiber, and stained glass works.  Lopez  is an Afro-Caribbean visual artist, eager to be challenged materialistically and metaphorically when representing marginaliz...

On this episode I'm joined by  Genevieve Gaignard as we discuss her latest exhibition, and third solo with Vielmetter Los Angeles, Thinking Out Loud. In the show, Gaignard excavates concepts of identity and reflects on the intersections of life’s journey.  In what might be Gaignard’s most intimate body of work to date, Thinking Out Loud overlaps her practice with her most recent lived experie...

On this episode, I’m joined by Paul Anthony Smith. His latest show, Antillean, is on view at Jack Shainman Gallery when we sit down to talk. Paul has just returned from London, where he attended Frieze London, and spent time seeing his Jamaican family, who lives there. In the episode, Paul reflects on the history of the Caribbean and explores themes of migration. We discussed how photography plays...

On this episode, I'm joined by Chiwoniso Kaitano Executive Director of MacDowell, the nation’s first artist residency program. She is the 10th person to lead the organization since 1907. Before joining MacDowell, Chi spent the last four years at the helm of Girl Be Heard, expanding its organizational budget, increasing individual giving by 200 percent, and growing both the staff and board. Pr...

On this episode, I'm joined by Samuel Levi Jones ahead of his latest solo exhibition at Vielmetter, Los Angeles, abstraction of truth. The exhibition presents a profound and timely critique of the structures that shape our understanding of authority and history. Jones’ method of deconstructing books and now, flags serves as a powerful metaphor for the dismantling of the colonial and imperial...

On this final episode of Everything is Connected: African Artists & Curators in the 60th edition of the Venice Biennale, I'm joined by Sir John Akomfrah RA. Akomfrah is a Ghanaian-born British artist, writer, film director, screenwriter, theorist and curator.  A pioneering filmmaker, Akomfrah creates multichannel video installations that critically examine the legacy of colonialism, the B...

On this episode I'm joined by Sandra Poulson. Sandra Poulson is an Angolan artist based in London and Luanda. Poulson draws from personal experiences and observations growing up in Luanda, Angola, a former Portuguese colony. Her work investigates the political, cultural, and socio-economic landscape of Angola analyzing the relationship between history, oral tradition, and global political str...

On this episode I’m joined by Wael Shawky. Wael Shawky is an Egyptian artist working between Alexandria and Philadelphia, whose practice is based on extensive periods of research and inquiry, tackling notions of national, religious and artistic identity through film, performance and storytelling. Shawky reconsiders historical narratives and contemporary culture. He was commissioned by the Egyptian...

On this episode I'm joined by Azu Nwagbogu, curator and a National Geographic Explorer at large and director and founder of Lagos Photo Festival and African Artists’ Foundation (AAF), a non-profit organization based in Lagos, Nigeria dedicated to the promotion of art in Africa with the purpose of developing talent, creating societal awareness, and providing a platform to express creativity. H...

On this episode I'm joined by MADEYOULOOK the South African, Johannesburg based interdisciplinary artist collaborative between Molemo Moiloa and Nare Mokgotho. The works of MADEYOULOOK take as their point of departure everyday Black practices that have either been historically overlooked or deemed inconsequential. These works encourage a re-observation of and de-familiarisation with the every...

On this episode I’m joined by Aindrea Emelife. Aindrea Emelife is a Nigerian-British curator and art historian specializing in modern and contemporary art, with a focus on questions around colonial and decolonial histories in Africa, transnationalism and the politics of representation. Aindrea is currently Curator, Modern and Contemporary at MOWAA (Museum of West African Art,). She is also the cur...

Light Work presents: Everything is Connected: African Artists in the 60th edition of the Venice Biennale! ⁠sponsored by The Africa Institute, Global Studies University launching next week!  The Africa Institute, Global Studies University, is an interdisciplinary academic research institute dedicated to the study, research and documentation of Africa, its people, and its cultures; its complex past,...

On this episode I'm joined by Kenturah Davis as we discuss her latest exhibition and her first solo in the UK with Stephen Friedman gallery. Kenturah Davis is a visual artist based between Los Angeles, California  and Accra, Ghana. Her work oscillates between various facets of portraiture and design. Using text as a point of departure, she explores the fundamental role that language has in sh...

On this episode I'm joined by LaToya M. Hobbs. LaToya M. Hobbs is an artist, wife, and mother of two from Little Rock, AR, who is currently living and working in Baltimore, MD. She received her B.A. in Painting from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and M.F.A. in Printmaking from Purdue University. Her work deals with figurative imagery that addresses the ideas of beauty, cultural ide...

On this episode I'm joined by Jade Thacker. Jade Thacker received her BFA from Massachusetts College of Art and Design and has been featured in solo and group exhibitions at Kravets Wehby Gallery, New York; Public Gallery, London; WOAW gallery, Beijing, and many more.  Thacker has participated in residencies at Fountainhead Residency, Miami and The Cabin, Los Angeles. She currently lives and...

On this episode I'm joined by Sedrick Chisom as we discuss his latest exhibition at C L E A R I N G gallery, And 108 Prayers of Evil.  Sedrick Chisom (b. 1989, Philadelphia) lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. He received a full scholarship to study at Cooper Union, where he completed his BFA in 2016 and was awarded the Jacques and Natasha Gelman Foundation Award for Exceptional Ability. In 2018...