Counter Attack: Artists and Curators Creating Change

Natasha Becker, Ebony Brown, Onyedika Chuke, and Nico Wheadon

Join us for a conversation exploring the role that artists and curators play in challenging dominant cultural narratives and institutional practices.

Natasha Becker: Born and raised in Cape Town, South Africa, Natasha Becker is an independent curator and writer of contemporary art based in New York. With expertise in contemporary African and African American art, her research, writing, and curatorial practice focuses on politically engaged art.

In 2020, she co-curated "For Which It Stands," launched by the Ford Foundation Gallery and presented by Assembly Room, and "Living in America" at the International Print Center New York; she also organized "A Perfect Storm" as Curator-in-Residence at Faction Art Projects in Harlem, New York. 2019 projects included co-curating the Ford Foundation Gallery’s inaugural exhibitions “Radical Love” and “Perilous Bodies,” and artist LeAndra LeSeur’s first solo show “Girls Girls Girls” at Assembly Room in New York. She also curated “Present Passing” with Patrick Flores for the Osage Art Foundation in Hong Kong.

Becker is one of the founding curators of Assembly Room, a curatorial collective and community that supports the professional empowerment of women curators. She is also a founding member and volunteer mentor at Art for Action South Africa, a student-led organization dedicated to raising funds to support local people making a difference in their communities.

Ebony Brown is a Brooklyn-based emerging artist, originally from Tulsa, OK raised in southern Maryland. Seeking honest, true self expression, she began to explore and cultivate her innate creativity during her early 20’s while working as a professional model in LA.

Having spent years in front of the camera, performance art was an organic, experimental process. Relying on an instinctual aptitude for color harmony, her work is vibrant and exhilarating whether it be an installation, painting, collage or up-cycled, garment. A visionary and multi-disciplinary artist by nature, she alone grants herself permission to challenge narrow, monolithic perimeters based on race, gender and socioeconomic standards. Spirituality, Sexuality, Feminism, Adornment, Ritual, Iconography and Worship are themes frequently presented in her practice.

Brown is a key collaborator in the new, contemporary, ideation of Wide Awakes where she conceptualizes and programs relevant, site specific activations. Understanding the effectiveness of artist-led activism to unite, empower and liberate communities and individuals, enables her to produce safe, unconventional forms of civic engagement rooted in diversity, inclusion and collective joy.

Onyedika Chuke (b. Onitsha, Nigeria) lives and works in New York City, NY. He studied at The Cooper Union and has participated in numerous fellowships and residencies, including The Drawing Center (2013-17), Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (2017), Socrates Sculpture Park (2016-17), SculptureCenter (2016), and The Bronx Museum (2019). Chuke conducted research on Rikers Island as a New York City Public Artist in Residence(2018-19). Chuke recently opened an art gallery called Storage in The Bowery neighborhood of Manhattan as an extension of his art practice.

His largest body of work titled The Forever Museum Archive (2011-present) began in Libya and is an ongoing collection of objects, text, and images. Chuke assumes the role of the archivist, researcher, and conservator; all working together within the constructs of a theoretical museum. The mission of this museum is to collect and re-contextualize historical objects as the artist reflects on contemporary theories in politics, culture and architecture. Since 2011, Chuke has worked on the archive in New York, Switzerland, France, and Rome. His work has been included in exhibition venues such as The Shed, SCAD Museum of Art, Queens Museum, Bronx Museum, and The American Academy in Rome. His work has been featured in publications such as The New York Times, BOMB Magazine, Artnet and BLAU International (forthcoming). Chuke’s upcoming projects include a large-scale installation at LMCC's Art Center on Governors Island in collaboration with Pioneer Works.

Nico Wheadon is an arts advisor, curator, educator and writer based in New Haven, CT.

Nico, alongside her partner Malik, is founder and principal of bldg fund, an innovation platform for BIPOC artists, entrepreneurs and neighbors. Her extensive background as an arts advocate, creative producer and cultural strategist supports bldg fund in connecting innovators with the necessary capital and collaborators to transform ideas into impact.

Nico is an adjunct assistant professor of Art History and Africana Studies at Barnard College, Professional Practices at Brown University, and Art & Place at Hartford Art School. She has also guest lectured at Yale, Princeton, Brown, MIT NYU, Pratt, The New School and Howard. Beyond the classroom, Nico has lectured internationally on topics including: the future of museums; art and entrepreneurship; arts-led regeneration in the post-industrial city; and building artist-led institutions.

A regular contributor to The Brooklyn Rail, Artnet, and C&, Nico’s first manuscript—On Museum Citizenship: A Toolkit for Radical Art Pedagogy, Practice, and Participation—is slated for publication in Spring 2021. The book brings together over forty pioneering voices from the field to reflect on canon-shifting practice currently taking place within, beyond, and through the museum space.

Nico currently serves on the Board of Governors at the National Academy of Design, and the Advisory Board for the Lubin School of Business Transformative Leadership Program.

In recent posts, Wheadon served as Inaugural Executive Director of NXTHVN (2019-2020); Inaugural Director of Public Programs and Community Engagement at the Studio Museum in Harlem (2014-2019); and Curatorial Director of Rush Arts Gallery (2007-2010).

Wheadon holds an MA in Creative & Cultural Entrepreneurship from Goldsmith's College University of London, and a BA in Art-Semiotics from Brown University.