Crystal Z Campbell is the recipient of the 2023–2024 Henry L. and Natalie E. Freund Fellowship, which includes a residency at Washington University’s Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts and a solo exhibition at the Saint Louis Art Museum.

Campbell, a 2021 recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in Fine Arts and a 2022 Creative Capital award, is a multidisciplinary artist, experimental filmmaker, and writer. Campbell’s work sheds new light on often overlooked historical narratives around the “underloved.” In this exhibition, the works focus on the complex history of the Philippines, particularly its time as a US colony from 1898 until 1946 and the aftermath. The varied media of this display are unified by their material presence as “skins,” whether manila envelopes, fragments of abaca paper, or scientific glass forms. For Campbell, each medium holds a colonial history embedded within it. The exhibition will include a video installation and a range of new work, including mixed media compositions in handmade paper and manila rope; metal and suede prints; and blown glass sculptures. Currents 124 provides a fascinating and nuanced interrogation of histories of colonialism, colonial exploitation, and ongoing attitudes to empire, nature, and the natural world.

Prior to the opening of Currents 124: Crystal Z Campbell, the artist spent a semester teaching a Washington University class of their own design, titled “Artists in the Archive,” which incorporated visits to archives in St. Louis.

Currents 124: Crystal Z Campbell is curated by Simon Kelly, the Museum’s curator of modern and contemporary art. This presentation is generously supported in part by the Henry L. and Natalie E. Freund Endowment Fund.