In the Studio: Abigail Hadeed

Abigail Hadeed was in conversation with Rachel Remick, assistant curator of Visual Arts. This program was held in conjunction with our current exhibition, Tropical is Political: Caribbean Art Under the Visitor Economy Regime. The artist discussed her work in the exhibition as it relates to her artistic practice.

Join us live on Instagram from your cell phone, or watch on YouTube after, for a series of remote visits to artists' studios to bring Americas Society's Visual Arts public programs to your home. Check out the series playlist.

About the artist: 

Abigail Hadeed (b. 1963, Port of Spain, Trinidad) is a Trinidad-born and based artist and photographer, who has been documenting Caribbean cultural traditions, environments and peoples for over 30 years. She is an outlier at heart, drawn to the overlooked: people on the periphery, mundane objects, flowers long past their bloom. Hadeed’s work seeks to advance concerns of the history of the wider Caribbean, a complex story of slavery, migration, mercantilism, trade, transportation, transmigration and alienation. She continues to strive to put a face to what history has denied; to interrogate the Caribbean Region at the crossroads of an unresolved past and an impending future. In 2020, Hadeed received two honorable mentions for her work in the International Photography Awards (The Island and I are One) and the Budapest Photography Awards (Still Life Still Lives - Not so Enchanted). In 2021, Cornell University’s Dark Laboratory awarded Hadeed’s ‘Warriors of Huracán’ with the first prize in photography awards. Hadeed has also represented Trinidad and Tobago at 1998 São Paulo Biennial and the 2006 Havana Biennial. In 2022, Hadeed was awarded a Mellon Grant through its inaugural cohort of Art x Tech Fellows for Digital Junkanoo, the newly funded lab as a part of the Diaspora Solidarities Lab (DSL) Mellon Grant for the fall of 2022.

Visit the Americas Society Visual Arts YouTube Channel for recordings of In the Studio Series and other previous events.

Follow the conversation on Instagram: #IntheStudioAS | @americassociety.visualarts

More digital content from Visual Arts at Americas Society:

• Check out the current exhibition Tropical is Political: Caribbean Art Under the Visitor Economy Regime.
• Check out the current iteration of our Flag Series: nibia pastrana santiago – YOUR ISLAND HERE.
• Read about the previous exhibition Geles Cabrera: Museo Escultórico.
• Read the exhibition catalogue for This Must Be the Place: Latin American Artists in New York, 1965–1975.
• Watch videos of recent events:
  • Geles Cabrera: Museo Escultórico
  • Young Filmmakers in New York: Collective Visions Screening
  • This Must Be The Place: An Oral History Book Launch
  • This Must Be the Place: Latin American Artists in New York, 1965–1975
  • Terence Gower: The Good Neighbor