Between matter and memory
Between matter and memory: Expanding the Walls 2023 considers how photographs can be used to process the gap between physical experiences and intangible recollections of the world. Provoked in part by the ending of Covid-19 as a public health emergency, the artists in the exhibition explore New York City as it is lived and remembered now. Whether depicting the solace of waking moments or the joy of neighbors, these photographs manifest the desire to hold onto a point in time. Reckoning with the inaccuracy of memory, these fifteen artists use the space between the certainty of the present and the instability of nostalgia as an aperture onto the world.
Between matter and memory: Expanding the Walls 2023 features work by the fifteen artists in the 2023 cohort of the Studio Museum in Harlem’s signature teen program, Expanding the Walls: Making Connections Between Photography, History, and Community. This year’s exhibition marks the program’s twenty-third anniversary.
Between matter and memory: Expanding the Walls 2023 is organized by Amber Edmond and Sheldon Gooch, Curatorial Fellows; with Ally Caple, Expanding the Walls Coordinator, and the Expanding the Walls 2023 participants.
Amber Edmond
Born and raised in Georgia and based in New York, Amber Edmond is a Joint Curatorial Fellow at the Studio Museum in Harlem and the Museum of Modern Art. She is in the second year of the two-year fellowship, working at the Studio Museum on various curatorial projects. At MoMA, Amber assisted on the exhibition Just Above Midtown: Changing Spaces, and previously she worked in archival, visitor services, and educational capacities at art museums. Amber received her BA in art history from Columbus State University. She is currently thinking about fleshy machines, computers, and materializing what seems immaterial.
Sheldon Gooch
Sheldon Gooch is a Midwestern-born, Brooklyn-based art historian and curator specializing in queer visual culture of the late twentieth century. They are currently a Joint Curatorial Fellow at the Studio Museum in Harlem and the Museum of Modern Art. Prior to the fellowship, Gooch was Curatorial Assistant at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis where they assisted in the research, planning, and installation of Gala Porras-Kim: Correspondences towards the living object, Alia Farid: a solo exhibition, Martine Gutierrez: HIT MOVIE Vol. 1, and other exhibitions. They hold a BA from Illinois State University where they studied art history, gender and sexuality, and German.
Ally Caple
Originally from New Haven County, Connecticut, Ally Caple is an artist and educator living and working in New York City. As the Expanding the Walls Coordinator at the Studio Museum in Harlem, Caple leads the museum’s eight-month long teen photography program. An alum of SUNY Purchase College and the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Caple works primarily in photography where their current practice considers surveillance, digital safety, and Black visibility in image-making.
Expanding the Walls and youth programs are made possible with support from The Keith Haring Foundation Education Fund; Joy of Giving Something; Phillip and Edith Leonian Foundation; Conscious Kids; Hearst Endowment Fund; and by the Jacob and Gwendolyn Lawrence Trust.
The Studio Museum in Harlem’s Learning and Engagement programs are supported by the Thompson Foundation Education Fund; William R. Kenan, Jr. Charitable Trust; Con Edison; Harlem Community Development Corporation; May and Samuel Rudin Family Foundation; and Joseph and Joan Cullman Foundation for the Arts. Additional support provided by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and New York State Council on the Arts.
The Studio Museum in Harlem is deeply grateful for Donna Van Der Zee’s continued support of Expanding the Walls.
