Berette S. Macaulay Exhibits at Melkweg Expo, Amsterdam

black voices

Berette S. Macaulay (Cultural Studies, '20) is a featured artist in the exhibition Back in the Day is our Future, part of the Melkweg Expo in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, October 29 through December 5, 2021.

Curated by Jessy Koeiman, Back in the Day is our Future amplifies Black voices who manifest resistance by celebrating the richness of Black culture and history. The exhibit centers Black joy, healing, and self-love as a necessary part of anti-racist and decolonial liberation movements. It aims to strengthen solidarity within the Black community by finding alternative histories, mapping black diaspora, and discovering personal archives.

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The multidisciplinary characteristic of the artists informed Jessy Koeiman’s selection process. Macaulay’s work appears alongside that of David Uzochukwu, Aqueene Wilson, Marciano Lynch – aka MC V.E.G.A, Ethel Tawe, Kay Slice and Rossel Chaslie.

The exhibit features three works by Macaulay. Embodied Witness, a 16-minute video essay on coded non-verbal communications within the African Diaspora, grows out of research she began in the Master of Arts in Cultural Studies program. The exhibit also includes Metamorphic Return, a single channel video and Il/legible presences, study 98 , a large scale photo work, both from the Metamorphic Return to Fusion project which explores mythical negotiations of trans*cultural identity, visibility, and opacity. Selections of this project were recently on view at Jacob Lawrence Gallery for the exhibition Queer Imagination curated by Brittney Frantece.


Embodied Witness: Performing Memory for Black (re)Cognition (video still) © Berette S Macaulay | Performers: Justin C. Lynch, Berette S Macaulay, Mark S. Pergola

Performing Memory for Black (re)Cognition (video still) | Performers: Justin C. Lynch, Berette S Macaulay, Mark S. Pergola

Macaulay is also currently working on her Curatorial Fellowship project [UN-TITLED] at On the Boards, in artistic partnership with Tom Pearson of Third Rail Projects. The project received the National Performance Network Creation Fund Grant this past summer. Berette and Tom just completed their first of three artist residencies with one of her project partners Wa Na Wari Seattle. Other partners and commissioners include Vanishing Seattle and BRIC Arts in Brooklyn, New York. The Seattle leg of the project is estimated for public participation in fall of 2022.