Re: purpose features the work of Pamela Council, Sara Jimenez, Sondra Perry and Patrice Renee Washington, four New York-based women artists who transform common domestic and cosmetic objects in order to expand the possibilities of self-representation. These artists redefine an object’s form and function to reveal its hidden histories and how our identities inform our perception.

Through work that is referential, critical and humorous, the artists negotiate their identities in relation to consumerism, popular culture, and the daily experience of inhabiting a gendered and racialized body. By choosing materials of personal significance, they claim a variety of cultural legacies and champion the legitimacy of subjective interpretation. Their work troubles aesthetic hierarchies and generates a critical dialogue around the lived realities of women of color in the contemporary art world.

In partnership with the artist-driven initiative Dancing While Black, movement-based artists Rashida Bumbray, Ebony Noelle Golden, Paloma McGregor, Sydnie Mosley, and Gesiye Souza-Okpofabri will perform solos in response to pieces in Re: purpose.

Presented in partnership with MoCADA, Human Rights Project and Urban Bush Women