Dianne Smith: Sonic Futures, Radiant Bodies

University Museum of Contemporary Art

September 15 – December 13
Reception: September 24

Multidisciplinary artist Dianne Smith celebrates her Caribbean aesthetic and envisions Black futurity through photography, sound, performance, sculpture, and ritual. Drawing on her Belizean heritage, Smith’s film Phenomenal Black Womanists honors Black women’s knowledge, beauty, and fashion as forms of creative expression, acts of resistance, and sources of joy.

Photographs from Smith’s series Between Harlem and Me layer archival black-and- white street photographs with contemporary images of Harlem residents who use fashion to express cultural identity. Suspended costumes commissioned for Lincoln Center’s Juneteenth celebrations further emphasize performance as a creative act of survival. At the center of the exhibition, an altar dedicated to women in Belize’s post-colonial period incorporates handwoven baskets, archival materials, and family histories, creating a space for remembrance and healing.

“Sonic Futures, Radiant Bodies imagine futures shaped by Black creativity, care, and resonance, where bodies shine, histories speak, and sound leads us forward.” — Dianne Smith

Black and white street photography layered with modern day photograph of fashionable women in Harlem

Dianne Smith, Harlem Ladies, from the series Between Harlem and Me, 2021 (print 2026). Archival digital pigment print, 24 x 24 inches. (© Dianne Smith)

Dianne Smith, Street Vendor, from the series Between Harlem and Me, 2021 (print 2026), archival digital pigment print, 24 x 24 inches. (© Dianne Smith)

Archival photograph of women in Harlem layered with modern image

Dianne Smith, King and Queen, from the series Between Harlem and Me, 2021 (print 2026), archival digital pigment print, 24 x 24 inches. (© Dianne Smith)

Dianne Smith, Red Ensemble, 2021 (printed 2026). Archival digital pigment print, 28’’ x 28’’. (© Dianne Smith)

Collage layering black and white street photograph with modern day photograph of Harlem

Dianne Smith, Church Ladies, from the series Between Harlem and Me, 2021 (print 2026), archival digital pigment print, 24 x 24 inches. (© Dianne Smith)

Dianne Smith, There No More, from the series Between Harlem and Me, 2021 (print 2026), archival digital pigment print, 24 x 24 inches. (© Dianne Smith)

Dianne Smith

Dianne Smith is a Bronx-born multidisciplinary artist of Belizean descent whose artistic career spans decades. Her work has been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions addressing a range of themes and mediums, including her solo exhibition Two Turntables and a Microphone at The Bronx Museum, which celebrated fifty years of hip-hop. She was one of three artists with solo presentations in Visions for Our Future, Echoes of Our Past at the Institute of Contemporary Art at Maine College of Art & Design, and her work has been included in The Way We Remember and the Uptown Triennial at the Wallach Art Gallery, Columbia University.

Smith received the Nancy Graves Foundation Award and a Fulbright from the United States Consulate General in Guayaquil, Ecuador. Her work is included in collections including the National Museum of Women in the Arts, The Bronx Museum, the Brodsky Organization, and the Petrucci Family Foundation Collection of African American Art. She lives and works in Harlem, New York.