I present “So that You All Won’t Forget: Speculations on a Black Home in Rural Virginia”, now on view through August 2025 at “Making Home” Smithsonian Design Triennial at the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum (
@cooperhewitt ).
The intimate gallery, a former dressing room, features several vignettes that remind me of, and imagine new scenes of, life on my family’s farmland in Prospect, VA. The vignettes are a mix of AI-generated artifacts, items from my personal collection (including several skillets from my own kitchen), archival footage, and a painted/quilted canvas by my mother Penny Stiff Hackett (
@pennyhackett ), done especially for this show. The gallery walls are draped in 250 pounds of real tobacco leaves—an homage to the plant my ancestors have cultivated for generations.
This project is the result of a year of work, years of wondering how I might incorporate my upbringing more in my practice, and decades of lived experience as a rural Southerner. I’m truly honored I was able to reflect and share my thoughts and dreams with you in this way.
Thank you to the goated curators:
@michelleinthemix ,
@xtina_de_leon , and
@alexcunninghamcameron for inviting me to be be a part, and for putting together such a beautiful, mesmerizing show. Thanks to the production team at the museum for getting across the finish line, especially
@true.frizz ,
@tristetoughguy , and
@wleah .
Yeah, this one is special.
