Search
Art & Culture

Next Big Things: Widline Cadet

The buzzworthy photographer draws from personal history to examine race, memory, erasure, migration and immigration

By Jacqueline Terrebonne
Three people in matching pink checkered dresses bending over in front of a matching backdrop on a grassy field.
Nou Fè Pati, Nou Se, Nou Anvi (We Belong, We be, We Long), 2020 (detail) Photo: Widline Cadet, Courtesy of the artist

Haitian-born artist Widline Cadet may work from her laptop in bed at her Harlem apartment, but her attention-grabbing imagery transports viewers to faraway places. Her photography, videos, and installation art explore race and identity, particularly Black female immigrants, and results in what she calls “a semi-imagined world grounded in my experiences.”

Person with braided hair wearing a suit and earrings, standing in front of a curtain. Black and white image.
Widline Cadet Photo: Widline Cadet, Courtesy of the artist

Body of work: “I love having the ability to dream up different imagery and being able to construct and bring them to life. Because I do a lot of self-portrait, I get to see myself and my body exist and occupy space in multiple worlds all at once.”

Person standing in water, looking at a display of tropical-themed fabric and metal sheets, with a calm sea background.
Seremoni Disparisyon #1 (Ritual [Dis] Appearance #1), 2019. Photo: Widline Cadet, Courtesy of the artist

Up next: Currently part of the Studio Museum in Harlem’s artist-in-residence program through September 2021, Cadet is also displaying work in an exhibition at Blue Sky Gallery in Portland, Oregon, and will be shown at the Royal Photographic Society in in the U.K. in the spring. widlinecadet.com

A soft dark gray blanket draped over vibrant pink flowers and lush green leaves.
Bougenvilye, Ki Iitilize Pou Bote, Vi Prive sou Liy Kloti, ak Pwoteksyon Pikan (Bougainvillea, Used for Beauty, Privacy on Fence Lines, and Thorny Protection), 2019 Photo: Widline Cadet, Courtesy of the artist
Person holding fabric printed with photo of a child, covering their face, in black and white, with a blurred background.
Kò an Kòm yon Lokal ki Baze sou Je (The Body as a Site Based on Sight), 2019 Photo: Widline Cadet, Courtesy of the artist

“Widline’s practice is an intimate entanglement. Her photographs show us how people move, reshaping a visual vocabulary of diaspora with the traces in her images marking this journey, a writing with the body that whispers, ‘We are still here.’”

Legacy Russell, associate curator, the Studio Museum in Harlem

Two people in matching pink dresses pose creatively in front of a pink checkered backdrop on a grassy field.
Nou Fè Pati, Nou Se, Nou Anvi (We Belong, We be, We Long), 2020 Photo: Widline Cadet, Courtesy of the artist