In 1804, Haiti overthrew French colonial control and become the world’s first independent Caribbean state and Black-led republic. It is one of the most densely populated countries in the world, with 1,000 people for every square mile. Artist Widline Cadet was born in the country in 1992, the year after a military junta overthrew the first freely elected President, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. At the age of 10, she moved to New York and now lives in Los Angeles. Her work explores these dual identities, centring her family’s lived experience of immigrating from Haiti to the USA as “source material to explore the complexities of Black diasporic life and survival.” Today, immigration is a topic at the forefront of American politics, with more than 330,000 Haitian immigrants in limbo as Donald Trump’s administration seeks to end temporary protected status. In this climate, Cadet’s work is vital – not just because it places lived experience at the heart of conversations, but also offers an antidote to an often told story of despair, instead focusing on real families in all their complexity and humanity.
The Milwaukee Art Museum hosts Currents 40: Widline Cadet, the artist’s first solo museum show in the USA. It also marks the first full presentation of her ambitious, nearly decade-long project Seremoni Disparisyon, which is rooted in lived experience and shaped by displacement. The exhibition is the latest in a long list of major presentation, including at Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Studio Museum, New York; Huis Marseille, Amsterdam; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; and Pèrez Art Museum. Even with such a glittering past, Currents 40 is a defining moment in Cadet’s career.
Cadet began this extensive project by photographing members of her extended family. It was a response to the scarcity of ancestral images passed down through the generations. Her experience of increasingly limited access to her relatives abroad, as well as generational transformation amongst her family in the US, inspired the artist to turn the camera towards herself and those around her, creating a “living archive.” Across the exhibition, autobiographical details – such as recreated domestic interiors, clothing and gestures – bridge past and present, presence and disappearance. A major aspect of the show is an installation of a home, fully equipped with laminate flooring, decorations and framed family photographs.
Installed in the Museum’s Herzfeld Center for Photography and Media Arts, the exhibition highlights Cadet’s innovative approach to image-making and display within a program known for advancing contemporary photography and media art. Photographs appear alongside video, found imagery and sculptural elements, often presented in unexpected configurations that disrupt traditional modes of photographic viewing. The result is an immersive experience that invites viewers to encounter images not simply as documents, but as evolving sites of memory and meaning. Kim Sajet, Director of the Milwaukee Art Museum, says: “The Milwaukee Art Museum holds one of the world’s outstanding collections of 20th century Haitian art and it is essential that we also made space for contemporary artists who are shaping how diasporic histories are understood today. Widline Cadet’s work brings those histories into the present, offering audiences a living, contemporary perspective that deepens how Haitian art is seen.”
Milwaukee Art Museum’s exhibition presents Cadet’s work in unexpected and spatially dynamic ways, offering a platform for the artist to challenge traditional modes of photographic representation. She invites viewers to experience images as open-ended, evolving narratives, and shines a light on the immigrant experience. The result is an impactful exhibition that forges a profound link between memory and belonging.
Currents 40: Widline Cadet is at Milwaukee Art Museum until 9 August: mam.org
Words: Emma Jacob
Image Credits:
1. Widline Cadet (Haitian, b. 1992), Nou fè pati, nou se, nou anvi (We Belong, We Be, We Long), 2020.
2. Widline Cadet (Haitian, b. 1992), Jiskaske enkinite vini nan yon fen (Until Infinity Comes to an End), 2021.
3. Widline Cadet (Haitian, b. 1992), Yon etranje ki pa sanble youn #2 (A Stranger Who Doesn’t Look Like One #2), 2019.
4. Widline Cadet (Haitian, b. 1992), Seremoni Disparisyon #1 (Ritual [Dis]Appearance #1), 2019.
5. Widline Cadet (Haitian, b. 1992), Seremoni Disparisyon #1 (Ritual [Dis]Appearance #1), 2019.
