Hayley Cutler and Curry J. Hackett: Summer R&D Artists-in-Residence
WPA is thrilled to welcome artists Hayley Cutler and Curry J. Hackett as Research & Development (R&D) Artists-in-Residence. During their residencies, Cutler and Hackett will delve into different aspects of WPA’s five-decade history of supporting trailblazing contemporary art in the District, with each artist following original strands of research specific to their own creative practices and interests. The residencies kick off this May and will culminate in October and November 2024 with two public presentations.
Hayley Cutler’s research will excavate WPA’s historic relationship to postmodern dance artists—including Steve Paxton, Simone Forti, Yvonne Rainer, and others—and the correlation between the various sites throughout DC in which their work was presented and DC’s dance history generally. Hayley has previously worked with WPA as an Artist Curator, during which time she selected six local, emerging movement-based artists to create solos for KUVV, a mixed-bill evening of work addressing embodied familial histories and traumas. KUVV and Hayley’s current research with WPA speak to a throughline that binds all of the artist’s work: mining the living archives within femme and female communities.
Curry J. Hackett’s research will explore the relationship between local Black history and WPA’s programming at specific sites throughout DC. Hackett’s research builds on his examination of histories of Black experience shaped by place and site. In 2021, Hackett received a Research Grant from Wherewithal Grants (managed by WPA) to support his ongoing research project, Drylongso: An Ode to the Southern Black Landscape which has since been presented as a solo installation in TheTwelve’s gallery space in Union Market. The project centers oral history as a way of documenting ordinary Black life in the rural American South.
Hackett and Cutler’s summer research and early fall presentations will inform the simultaneous development of WPA’s digital archive, which will launch in 2025, commencing WPA’s 50th year anniversary season.