In Dialogue
Wherever I Lay My Head, now on view at The Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning , began with an invitation to Indira A. Abiskaroon to curate the culminating ARTWorks exhibition. The offer came from Program Manager Sherwin Banfield and was formalized in conversation with Director of Program Operations Wendy Arimah Berot. Abiskaroon’s first priority was to spend time with the ARTWorks Fellows—to learn how their practices had developed over the course of the program and to hear what ideas had been resonating in their weekly sessions.
One theme returned with frequency and weight: home. A concept with many dimensions, home can be made, sustained, left behind, and carried forward. The exhibition’s title, drawn from Marvin Gaye’s 1962 B-side, reflects this complexity—approaching home as something shaped through care, continuity, and connection.
Abiskaroon brings to this work a background in art history, writing, and community-centered curation. Born and raised in Queens—Flushing and Jamaica—she lives and works between Manhattan and Brooklyn, and currently serves as the Curatorial Assistant of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Brooklyn Museum. Her work focuses on artists of Asian and Caribbean diasporas. As the daughter of immigrants and a lifelong New Yorker, she sees exhibition-making as a form of public engagement rooted in the cultural, social, and emotional texture of the city.
We spoke with Indira about her curatorial practice, her approach to collaboration, and the process behind Wherever I Lay My Head.
Tell us about the show. What will we see there?
Wherever I Lay My Head presents new and recent work by the 2025 ARTWorks Fellows, forming a multidisciplinary constellation of reflections on identity, memory, migration, and sanctuary.
Marleen Moise’s installation—spanning photography, textile, and video—celebrates their chosen family and showcases the safe havens that queer communities create through nightlife and communal care. Their work foregrounds the lived experiences of Black queer people, insisting on the necessity of space for joy, visibility, and belonging.
Laura OsCam contributes new and recent works from her ongoing CALEIDOSCORPO series, which includes crumb-quilted, mixed-media sculptures inspired in part by Colombian craft traditions. Through this body of work, OsCam meditates on her own experiences of migration, loss, and renewal, with each piece becoming a tender, dynamic site of memory, where home must at once be unfixed and evolving.
Eujin V. Ra explores home as a state of interiority, where identity is shaped by both our thoughts and the people who surround us. Her acrylic paintings blur figuration and abstraction, resulting in dreamlike compositions that depict the spaces between experience, memory, and imagination. Her work invites viewers to consider what we see when we close our eyes, where place and feeling meet, and where control and chaos coexist.
Julia D. Shaw offers kaleidoscopic sculpture and collage made from upcycled mannequin parts, cowrie shells, African wax print fabric, and other found materials. She calls forth ancestral presence and domestic care, drawing on her photo archive to commemorate connections through place, such as the household that her family has maintained across generations. Though rooted in personal history, the works carry universal resonance, inviting viewers to reminisce about similar shared experiences.
Courtney Symone Staton’s video installations join performance, poetry, and documentary. She centers the voices of her community, encompassing poets and activists, who speak through verses that caution, console, and call to action. They speak of music, justice, and survival, collectively offering an empathy-driven moment of reflection in a moment where it is direly needed.
TEDF presents a love letter to his birthplace, the island of Jamaica, in a series of new relief sculptures. Using traditional printmaking techniques—carving into linoleum and wood, applying ink, but never printing from the block—he creates works that are both delicate and dynamic. Through these pieces, he commemorates both loved ones and lauded Jamaican figures, as well as the inherited language, humor, and creative lineage that permits him to always hold home close.
About the curator: Indira A. Abiskaroon is a New York-based art historian, curator, and writer. Her research engages diaspora art, particularly in relation to the practices of artists of Asian and/or Caribbean descent. As the Curatorial Assistant of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Brooklyn Museum, she has co-curated Spike Lee: Creative Sources, Giants: Art from the Dean Collection of Swizz Beatz and Alicia Keys, and Melissa Joseph: Tender, while supporting presentations on Jimmy DeSana, Red Grooms, Guadalupe Maravilla, Christian Marclay, Thierry Mugler, and Oscar yi Hou. Notable independent projects include writing on Theresa Hak Kyung Cha and curating exhibitions of Aiza Ahmed, Kimmah M. Dennis, and Marielena Ferrer. She previously worked at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, and Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. Abiskaroon holds a BA from the Macaulay Honors College at Hunter College and an MA from the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University.
All photos courtesy of the artists.
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Jamaica Center for the Arts and Learning, 161-04 Jamaica Ave, Jamaica, NY 11432 @jamaicaartscenter
There will be an artist talk on Saturday, May 24, and a closing reception on June 20.Jamaica Arts Center