The term “ann pale,” Haitian Creole for “let’s talk”, frames this intimate conversation about Octavia Butler’s Earthseed book series. Butler’s science fiction novels have been an inspiration for many artists and a means to examine the complexities and possibilities of Black futurity. This discussion will explore references and methodologies in the artists’ practices and how Butler’s legacy has influenced their work.

This program takes place on Zoom with live CART captioning and ASL interpretation. 

a:nn pa:le Earthseed: Jeffrey Meris in Conversation with Tomashi Jackson and Alexandria Smith is presented on the occasion of And ever an edge: Studio Museum Artists in Residence 2022–23, on view at MoMA PS1 while the Studio Museum constructs a new building on the site of its longtime home on West 125th Street.

And ever an edge is organized by Yelena Keller, Assistant Curator, the Studio Museum in Harlem, and Jody Graf, Assistant Curator, MoMA PS1. Exhibition research and support is provided by Sheldon Gooch, Curatorial Assistant, MoMA PS1 (former Studio Museum in Harlem and MoMA Joint Curatorial Fellow).

MoMA PS1 support for And ever an edge is generously provided by the Tom Slaughter Exhibition Fund and the MoMA PS1 Annual Exhibition Fund.

The Studio Museum in Harlem Artist-in-Residence program is funded by the Glenstone Foundation. Additional support for the Artist-in Residence program provided by The American Express Kenneth and Kathryn Chenault Sponsorship Fund; National Endowment for the Arts; Joy of Giving Something; Doris Duke Charitable Foundation; Jerome Foundation; Anonymous; Milton and Sally Avery Arts Foundation; and by endowments established by the Andrea Frank Foundation; the Jacob and Gwendolyn Knight Lawrence Trust; and Rockefeller Brothers Fund. Additional funding is generously provided by The New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and New York State Council on the Arts.

Jeffrey Meris (b. 1991, Haiti; lives and works in New York) is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice engages with the relationship between materiality and larger cultural and social phenomena. The work is greatly informed by the artist's upbringing in the Bahamas. Across sculpture, installation, performance, and drawing, Meris’s work considers ecology, embodiment, and various lived experiences, while healing deeply personal and historical wounds. Meris earned an AA in arts and crafts from the University of the Bahamas in 2012, a BFA in sculpture from the Tyler School of Art in 2015, and an MFA in visual arts from Columbia University in 2019. Meris has exhibited at the Newcomb Art Museum, New Orleans (2023); Amon Carter Museum, Texas (2023); the Aldrich Museum, Connecticut (2023); Lehman Maupin, New York (2022); James Cohan Gallery, New York (2021); White Columns, New York (2021); the Luggage Store Gallery, San Francisco (2020); Halle 14, Leipzig, Germany (2017); and the National Art Gallery of the Bahamas, the D'Aguilar Art Foundation, and Mestre Projects, all in Nassau, Bahamas (2012, 2017, 2021). Meris is a Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture alum (2019); a NXTHVN Studio Fellow, New Haven (2020); a Sharpe-Walentas Studio Program artist in residence, Brooklyn (2021); and a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Awardee (2023). Always Jeffrey never "Jeff."

Tomashi Jackson (b. 1980 in Houston, Texas) combines practices of painting, printmaking, and sculpture with archival research in areas of public infrastructure policy. Jackson’s solo museum exhibitions include Across the Universe organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver (2023) and traveling to multiple venues through 2025; SLOW JAMZ at the Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase, NY (2022); The Land Claim at the Parrish Art Museum, Water Mill, New York (2021); and Love Rollercoaster at The Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio (2020), among others. Her work was included in the 2019 Whitney Biennial and has been featured in group exhibitions at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; High Museum, Atlanta; Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art; and the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, among others. Her work is included in many public collections, including those of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, The Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, the Perez Museum, Miami and the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, among others. She lives and works in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Alexandria Smith was born in the Bronx, New York and earned her BFA in illustration from Syracuse University, New York; MA in art education from New York University; and MFA from Parsons The New School for Design. Smith was a public and charter school art teacher in Harlem and the South Bronx for over a decade. She served as co-organizer of the collective Black Women Artists for Black Lives (BWA for BL) from 2017 - 2018. Smith is the recipient of many awards, fellowships and residencies such as the Queens Museum/Jerome Foundation and Fine Arts Work Center Fellowships, MacDowell, Yaddo and LMCC residencies and a Pollock-Krasner Grant. Smith lives and works in New York and is Director of Undergraduate Studies in Studio Art and Assistant Professor in Painting and Printmaking at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Most recently, Alexandria had her third solo exhibition with Gagosian entitled “Stirrings of a Polymorphous Bloom” in Hong Kong.