On view through July 3, 2027, HCCC’s latest edition of In Residence celebrates the work of our 2025-2026 resident artist cohort, whose unique perspectives and approaches to craft invite deep looking and critical thinking. Pieces like Malene Djenaba Barnett’s Tracing DNA (2026) also offer exciting visions of a future where craft empowers all aspects of life.
Following a map informed by her own DNA, Malene explores her heritage through its art, architecture, and objects, including the distinctive architecture of the Hausa and Kassena people of West Africa, pottery shards uncovered from the ruins of Port Royal in Jamaica, and Portuguese decorative ‘azulejo’ tiles.
In the spirit of “sankofa,” meaning “to go back and get,” Malene’s practice embraces her African-American, Caribbean, and West African identities, recontextualizing their intersection with histories of colonization, slavery, and resource extraction. “Tracing DNA” reclaims “azulejos,” decorative tiles that came to Portugal by way of Moorish Spain and whose robust production was funded by the profits of colonization and the transatlantic slave trade.
Here, Malene replaces traditional historical scenes and geometric motifs with underglaze transfer photos of her family and the phrase ‘Dear Mom’ repeated in Adlam, a script specifically developed for the Fulani language and whose name is an acronym for “the alphabet that protects the peoples from vanishing.” Combined with vibrant, hand-carved tiles of red, white, and black clay, the imagery and process behind Malene’s composition honors the diversity of the diaspora, connecting West African origins to the Caribbean and the Americas, inviting us to envision and foster new futures.
