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 complex relationships between people and their environment. Nkanga’s art is deeply rooted in storytelling, using materials like minerals, textiles, and organic substances to narrate humanity's interaction with land and resources.

Nkanga's work has garnered international acclaim, including numerous exhibitions at prestigious institutions such as Tate Modern, Castello di Rivoli, and the Venice Biennale. In 2019, she received the Sharjah Biennial Prize and the prestigious Ultima Prize for Visual Arts in Belgium. Her ongoing project Carved to Flow, which merges art, community, and sustainability, exemplifies her commitment to creating dialogues around ethical consumption and interconnectedness. Nkanga's innovative work continues to influence contemporary art, prompting critical reflections on the ties between ecology, culture, and the global economy.

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 text into his work, Holmes intersperses reflections on social, cultural, and political concerns with deeply felt meditations on notions of family, home, and Blackness. He is a storyteller whose determination to imbue his work with his own subjective, lived experience is itself a subtle, effective political gesture.

His work has been included in numerous group exhibitions, including: Afro-Atlantic Histories, which traveled to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX; the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; and the Dallas Museum of Art, TX.

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 marginalized individuals that inspire and move her. Her works are created out of the necessity to learn something new about her people and culture. Lopez is interested in developing a nostalgic dialogue between the artwork and the viewer.

This episode was recorded before the results of the 2024 US Presidential Election.

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 experience, set against the backdrop of her newly situated life in New York where she has a new studio. Her symbol-laden, cryptic work speaks to larger truths: the building and breaking down of walls, the rupture of domesticity as wallpaper tears, and the detritus of everyday life that we must all work our way through. Gaignard explores the veil as armor, representing protection while moving through growth. Gaignard has described her working process as a “lived playlist, a diaristic processing of my life, a creative vibe set against the backdrop of mix tapes and personal soundtracks that transcends, romanticizes, and provides an escape from the everyday.”

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 a key role in his work, and his use of labor-intensive techniques, such as the hand-scratching method known as picotage, including how becoming a father has changed his perspective on life and creativity.

In Antillean, he continues his exploration of the ways in which memory, both personal and historical, can shape the present and fragment the past. This body of works stems from photographs Smith made during Carnival festivities in Trinidad and Tobago from 2020 to 2023.

Paul Anthony Smith was born in Jamaica in 1988 and currently lives and works in New York City.

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. Prior to Girl Be Heard, she served as executive director of Ifetayo Cultural Arts Academy, a 30-year-old Brooklyn-based arts and culture organization. She is an avid traveler, having lived on three continents. She holds a law degree from the London School of Economics and a master’s in international affairs from Columbia University’s School for International and Public Affairs. She also serves on the Board of Directors of three New York City-based nonprofits: the International Contemporary Ensemble, The Center for Fiction (formerly The Mercantile Library), and The Jazz Leaders Fellowship of Brooklyn Conservatory of Music. Originally from Zimbabwe, she currently lives in Brooklyn, New York.

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 narratives that continue to influence our legal and social systems. By physically tearing apart these symbols of power and reassembling them into abstract compositions, Jones not only challenges the authority of these texts but also invites viewers to question the origins and implications of the knowledge they represent.

Samuel Levi Jones was born and raised in Marion, Indiana, and he lives and works in Indianapolis, Indiana. Trained as a photographer and multidisciplinary artist, he earned a B.A. in Communication Studies from Taylor University and a B.F.A from Herron School of Art and Design in 2009. He received his MFA in Studio Art from Mills College in 2012. He is the recipient of the 2014 Joyce Alexander Wein artist prize awarded by the Studio Museum in Harlem.

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 Black diaspora, and environmental degradation. Akomfrah weaves together original footage with archival material to create stirring, layered narratives that juxtapose personal and historical memory, past and present, and environmental and human crises. This year, Akomfrah was commissioned by the British Council to represent Great Britain with his multi-layered film piece, 'Listening All Night to the Rain.'

This exclusive season of Everything is Connected: African Artists & Curators in the 60th edition of the Venice Biennale is sponsored by The Africa Institute, Global Studies University.

Light Work is a creative media platform rooted at the intersection of art, education, and culture highlighting the work of emerging, mid-car.eer, and established artists from diverse communities and the art professionals who seek to amplify their achievements and contributions to society