Cassi Namoda and Jessica Bell Brown

On the occasion of her first solo exhibition in the US, Life Is the Seamstress of Dreams, opening this September at the Institute for Contemporary Art at Virginia Commonwealth University, Cassi Namoda discusses ideas central to her practice with the Executive Director Jessica Bell Brown in her studio in Biella, Italy.

“When I'm painting and telling story, I try to create a world where it's very hard to discern the waking life and the magical life or the dreamt life and that maybe our lived experiences or maybe informed by our dreams” — Cassi Namoda

Jessica Bell Brown is a curator, writer, and arts leader, currently serving as the Executive Director of the Institute for Contemporary Art at Virginia Commonwealth University. She is the former Curator and Department Head of Contemporary Art at the Baltimore Museum of Art, where she helped transform the collection and collaborated with several artists, including John Akomfrah, Abigail Lucien, and LaToya Ruby Frazier. Her writing has been featured in several artist monographs and catalogues, including Janiva Ellis, Baldwin Lee, Thaddeus Mosley, Lubaina Himid, Matthew Angelo Harrison, Nari Ward as well as Flash Art, Artforum, Art Papers, Hyperallergic, and The Brooklyn Rail. Brown has held roles at Gracie Mansion Conservancy and The Museum of Modern Art, New York. She served as the curator of the Vice President's Residence at One Naval Observatory, under the Biden-Harris administration.