Keisha Scarville, winner of the 2026 UOVO Prize, brings an intimate meditation through her photography and installations in Bushwick and at the Brooklyn Museum this season. \n<\/p>\n
Brooklyn-born artist Keisha Scarville<\/a>\u00a0on Thursday will unveil two large-scale outdoor work in her hometown that centers on memory, migration and absence.\u00a0<\/p>\n Scarville, the\u00a02026 recipient of the UOVO Prize<\/a>, will present\u00a0a 50-by-50-foot photographic mural on the facade of UOVO\u2019s Bushwick storage facility, alongside Where Salt Meets Black Water, a large-scale outdoor installation on the Iris Cantor Plaza at the Brooklyn Museum<\/a>. Both projects are free and open to the public, positioning her work within the daily flow of Brooklyn life.<\/p>\n Best known for her interdisciplinary approach to photography, collage and archival material, her Brooklyn Museum installation expands on her series Mama\u2019s Clothes, incorporating garments belonging to her late mother, Alma, alongside black-and-white photographic reproductions installed across the museum\u2019s steps and surrounding walls.<\/p>\n The result is a site-specific work that transforms one of the borough\u2019s most visible cultural spaces into an environment for reflection.<\/p>\n \u201cI would want people to dwell in it,\u201d Scarville said. \u201cThat\u2019s my first goal. The way I\u2019ve imagined the space is as a place where people can inhabit and just be.\u201d<\/p>\n Born in Brooklyn to Guyanese parents who immigrated to New York in the late 1960s, Scarville described the opportunity to present work at the Brooklyn Museum as both deeply personal and historically grounded.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s overwhelming, but it also feels full circle,\u201d she said. \u201cMy parents were taking me to the Parkway since before I can remember. To have the work be there, it feels surreal, like a dream come true. I knew that I wanted to honor my lineage, and in particular my mom, in this space.\u201d<\/p>\n Located along Eastern Parkway, the museum\u2019s steps function as both an entry point and a gathering site, particularly during public programs and weekend events. Scarville\u2019s installation meets that activity directly, inviting passersby to engage the work without the formal boundaries of a gallery.<\/p>\n \u201cIt feels larger than myself,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s an opportunity to speak to Caribbean heritage and allow that space to hold that narrative.\u201d<\/p>\n Rather than directing a singular interpretation, Scarville is more interested in how viewers encounter the work on their own terms. \u201cI\u2019m always interested in what other people gather from it, even before fully understanding what the story is behind it,\u201d she said. \u201cThere\u2019s something about that moment of curiosity that matters.\u201d<\/p>\n At the same time, the installation raises broader questions about the role of photography in public space.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s this other space in me that wants individuals to reconsider the ways in which photography can become monument in a different way,\u201d she said. \u201cBut the main thing is wanting people to feel held by the images.\u201d<\/p>\n The UOVO Prize arrives at a pivotal moment in Scarville\u2019s career. Like many working artists, she balances teaching with her studio practice while navigating the financial pressures of living in the city.<\/p>\n \u201cThis prize is giving me a moment to rest,\u201d she said. \u201cMy time is spent between teaching and practice, and that\u2019s not an easy thing to balance. So this allows me to take some time and really focus.\u201d<\/p>\n Scarville is also preparing to release a new book, Passports, centered on her father\u2019s first passport photograph. The project examines migration through bureaucratic image-making and the ways identity is constructed through official documentation.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s an interrogation of photography, particularly bureaucratic photography,\u201d she said. \u201cThinking through what it means to be an immigrant from the Caribbean in America.\u201d<\/p>\n Scarville also plans to travel to Guyana for an extended research period, continuing to develop work that engages diasporic histories and lived experience.<\/p>\n \u201cFlatbush was the Caribbean for me growing up,\u201d she said. \u201cThere are all these stories and histories that are just part of Eastern Parkway, and I want to keep having that conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Keisha Scarville, winner of the 2026 UOVO Prize, brings an intimate meditation through her photography and installations in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":220920,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,99,9,24,63,87071],"class_list":["post-220919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-photographybrooklynthe-brooklyn-museumkeisha-scarvilleuovo-prize"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=220919"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220919\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/220920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=220919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=220919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=220919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}