Artist-in-Residence

Jamaica Kincaid (2026-2027)

Jamaica Kincaid (born Elaine Potter Richardson in 1949, St. John’s, Antigua) is a celebrated writer whose work incisively explores colonialism, power, memory, gender, and the intimate legacies of empire. After moving to the United States as a teenager, she began her literary career writing for The New Yorker, where her distinctive voice quickly gained recognition.

Kincaid is the author of influential works including “Annie John,” “Lucy,” “A Small Place,” “The Autobiography of My Mother,” and “See Now Then.” Across fiction and nonfiction, she interrogates the enduring effects of colonial domination on personal and collective identity, often drawing on autobiographical experience and Caribbean history. She has received numerous honors for her contributions to literature and has also been a longtime professor of African and African American Studies at Harvard University.

Nora Chipaumire (2023-2024)

Nora Chipaumire was born in 1965 in what was then known as Umtali, Rhodesia (now Mutare, Zimbabwe). She is a product of colonial education for black native Africans – known as group B schooling – and has pursued other studies at the University of Zimbabwe (law) and at Mills College in Oakland, California (dance). 

Public Program

Nora Chipaumire in conversation with

• Nontsikelelo Mutiti, director of Graduate Studies in Graphic Design, Yale School of Art
• Jay Pather, choreographer, curator, director of Siwela Sonke Dance Theatre, Associate Professor in the Drama Department, University of CapeTown, SA
• Erin Washington, adjunct professor of theater arts, Columbia University School of the Arts
• Dana Whabira, founder of Njelele Art Station, Zimbabwe
   

Mickalene Thomas (2022-2023)

Mickalene Thomas, born in 1971, is an acclaimed Brooklyn-based international artist and filmmaker. She received a BFA from the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn and an MFA from the Yale University School of Art. Thomas is known for constructing complex portraits, landscapes, and interiors to examine how identity and gender are informed by popular culture. She is the recipient of the Newark Museum’s Artistic Impact Award (2022), a Rema Hort Mann Foundation 25th Anniversary Honoree (2022) and the first Black femme artist to have a scholarship in her name at the Yale School of Art (2023).  She has served as the Presidential Visiting Fellow as well as the Visiting Core Critic for Graduate Painting/Printmaking at Yale University School of Art.

Public Program

ˈentrəpē 

Mickalene Thomas turns her gaze from her arresting, often glittering and provocative mixed-media visual art to present /ˈentrəpē/ — a collaboration of music and art with the multi–Grammy Award-winning jazz musician, Terri Lyne Carrington and her band. Together, they created a uniquely queer, futuristic, dynamic, and unpredictable experience inspired by Mickalene’s artistry.

Jason Moran (2020-2021)

Pianist, composer, and artist Jason Moran was born in Houston, Texas, in 1975. He earned a degree from the Manhattan School of Music, where he studied with Jaki Byard. He was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2010 and is currently the artistic director for Jazz at The Kennedy Center. His activity stretches beyond the 15 critically acclaimed solo recordings. His 21-year relationship with his trio, The Bandwagon (with drummer Nasheet Waits and bassist Tarus Mateen), has resulted in a profound discography for Blue Note Records and Yes Records, a label he co-owns with his wife, singer, and composer Alicia Hall Moran. Moran keeps a close relationship with music and activism, culminating in his film scoring with director Ava DuVernay on  “Selma” and “13th.”  His groundbreaking multimedia tributes to Thelonious Monk, Fats Waller, and James Reese Europe have shifted the jazz performance paradigm.  Moran currently teaches at the New England Conservatory.

Watch his discussion with Ayana Mathis for Black Arts Dialogues held Feb. 23, 2021.