We Have Reach

Upcoming program:
“Films by Sonya Dyer, Yuko Edwards, and Steffani Jemison: a screening for We Have Reach,” Tuesday, April 15, 7-9 pm, Tishman Auditorium, with discussion led by literature faculty and exhibition co-curator Anaïs Duplan and visual arts student Edna Ndayisaba. Free and open to the public.

We Have Reach is an exhibition of visual and performance art that considers how the Black feminine has been restricted, exploited, expelled, or compelled in relation to taking up space. The curatorial group Studio AGD conceptualized this project to facilitate a conversation about the friction, endurance, and possibility of an empowered and expansive Black femme figure within her exterior environment. Exhibition themes include the extent of the body across time and space, fugitive movement and fugitive stillness, exploitative fecundity, and the longing of the Black feminine body and consciousness for heaven and home. In dialogue with historical muses including Henrietta Lacks and Anarcha Westcott, We Have Reach features works by artists Keren Alfred, Zoe Butler, Sonya Dyer, fields harrington, Anina Major, Sherae Rimpsey, and Nastassja E. Swift, with performances during the Feb. 25 opening reception by Butler and Rimpsey.

The curatorial group Studio AGD is a collaboration of Folasade Adesanya, Zoe Butler, and Bennington literature faculty member Anaïs Duplan.

The presentation of the Sonya Dyer sculpture Andromeda Mission: Anarcha Prototype II (2019) is supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England. 

Image: Detail, video still from Sonya Dyer, Action>Potential, 2023