From L-R: Amber Esseiva, photo courtesy McNair Evans; Emanuel Admassu and Jen Wood, photos courtesy the speakers.
TICKETS
General Ticket: $20
Member Ticket: $15
Amber Esseiva, curator of Dear Mazie, leads an illuminating conversation with Emanuel Admassu and Jen Wood, founding partners of the acclaimed art and architecture practice AD—WO, whose work is included in the exhibition. Together, they will shine a light on our current show, taking attendees through the exhibition’s conception, actualization, realization and its journey to Sag Harbor. Following the discussion there will be an insightful Q&A with the curator and her guests followed by an opportunity to view the exhibition outside our normal exhibition hours.
ABOUT OUR SPEAKERS
AMBER ESSEIVA
Curator of Dear Mazie,
Senior Curator and Director of Curatorial Affairs at ICA at VCU
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AMBER ESSEIVA is a Swiss-Senegalese-American curator and educator specialized in producing contemporary art exhibitions and programs by national and international mid-career and emerging artists. Esseiva is currently the Senior Curator and Director of Curatorial Affairs at the Institute for Contemporary Art at Virginia Commonwealth University (ICA VCU). A VCUarts alumna, Esseiva has been essential to the ICA’s programming since joining the institution in 2016. Esseiva is also the Curator-at-Large for The Studio Museum Harlem.
Most recently, Esseiva curated the first contemporary art exhibition dedicated to the life and work of Amaza Lee Meredith titled Dear Mazie, (Sept 2024-March 2025). The exhibition includes commissions by AD-WO (Emanuel Admassu and Jen Wood), The Black School (Shani Peters and Joseph Cuillier), Lukaza Branfman-Verissimo, Kapwani Kiwanga, Abigail Lucien, Practise (James Goggin and Shan James), Tschabalala Self, and Cauleen Smith. Esseiva has also curated solo exhibitions by Kandis Williams, Naima Green, Jeremy Touissaint-Baptise, Dineo Seshee Bopape, Guadalupe Maravilla, and Martine Syms, among others. Other group exhibitions include Great Force (October 5, 2019 – January 5, 2020), the ICA’s exhibition featuring new commissions and recent work by an intergenerational group of 24 artists, exploring how art can be used to envision new forms of race and representation freed from the bounds of historic racial constructs.
Esseiva received her M.A. in 2015 from the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College (CCS Bard). She also co-founded the interdisciplinary curatorial journal aCCeSsions and was appointed the curator of the 2014 M.F.A. graduate thesis exhibition at Bard MFA Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts. She earned a B.A. in Art History from Virginia Commonwealth University.
AD—WO
Founding Partners Emanuel Admassu & Jen Wood
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AD—WO is an art and architecture practice directed by Emanuel Admassu and Jen Wood.
The practice examines ideas of measurement and animism. Rooted in Black studies and conceptual art, AD—WO designs buildings, exhibitions, tapestries, and installations.
Founded in 2018, AD—WO has created independent art works and installations that have been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Chicago Architecture Biennial and the Venice Biennale of Architecture. Their most recent work, currently on view, is an environmental installation featuring a series of sculptures at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.
They have also designed exhibitions at the Studio Museum in Harlem, the Institute of Contemporary Art at Virginia Commonwealth University and the Bard Graduate Center.
Emanuel Admassu is assistant professor at Columbia University, GSAPP. He is currently working on a book titled Animist Urbanisms that articulates the vibrant relations between animist cultural practices and contemporary urban systems in Atlanta, Addis Ababa, and Dar es Salaam. Jen Wood is a registered architect in the state of New York with nearly two decades of experience working for leading architecture practices in Melbourne and New York.
AD—WO has received numerous awards including United States Artists (USA) Fellowship in Architecture & Design, J. Irwin and Xenia S. Miller Prize (Exhibit Columbus), The Architectural League’s Emerging Voices award, and the Pinpoint Award from African Futures Institute (AFI). Works by AD—WO are included in the permanent collections of the Art Institute of Chicago and the High Museum of Art in Atlanta.