CAC WCadet 3 2023 Manyen Distans (Touching Distance)
Widline Cadet, Manyen Distans (Touching Distance), 2023. Inkjet print, 50 × 40 inches. Christine A. Symchych and James P. McNulty. © Widline Cadet

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Featured Exhibition Highlight: Widline Cadet

Posted on October 23, 2026

One of six Featured Exhibitions in the 2026 Biennial, Widline Cadet: Seremoni Disparisyon (Ritual [Dis]Appearance) is curated by Kristen Gaylord, Herzfeld Curator of Photography and Media Arts at the Milwaukee Art Museum. On view at the Contemporary Arts Center, admission to this exhibition is free during the month of October to anyone with the free Biennial Pass.

Below, Cadet discusses a few of the works included in the exhibition. More audio clips are available on the Contemporary Art Center’s Bloomberg Connects digital guide.

An Echo of Gratitude

CAC WCadet 2 2023 An Echo Of Gratitude, FotoFocus
Widline Cadet, An Echo of Gratitude, 2023. Inkjet print, 20 × 16 inches. Courtesy of the artist and Nazarian / Curcio. © Widline Cadet

Sé sou ou mwen mété espwa m #2 (I Put All My Hopes on You #2)

I Put All My Hopes 2
Widline Cadet, Sé Sou Ou Mwen Mété Espwa m #2 (I Put All My Hopes On You #2), 2021. Inkjet prints, 50 x 40 x 2 inches. Milwaukee Art Museum; Purchase with funds from the Lucia K. Stern Trust. © Widline Cadet

About Widline Cadet: Seremoni Disparisyon (Ritual [Dis]Appearance)

October 2, 2026–February 7, 2027

Widline Cadet: Seremoni Disparisyon (Ritual [Dis]Appearance), the second presentation of the artist’s first solo museum exhibition in the United States, presents her acclaimed series exploring Black diasporic life through her family’s immigration from Haiti.

After leaving Haiti as a child, Cadet originally photographed her extended family to supplement the small number of images of her ancestors that had been passed down, counteracting both the physical separation from her home country and the loss of these relatives. But increasingly limited access to her family abroad inspired the artist to turn the camera on herself, as well as other Black women around her, creating a stand-in archive that explores absence through presence. 

Seremoni Disparisyon addresses shared themes of immigration, including loss, aspiration, and memory, through the specificity of Cadet’s experiences. Many works contain concrete autobiographical details: family photographs and videos, personal belongings like the curtains her mother brought from Haiti, and Kreyòl titles drawn from actual conversations. Others stretch across distance and memory, like the photograph of a model in a gingham dress, a re-creation of the artist’s childhood school uniform. Although displaced from her original home, Cadet nevertheless finds echoes of it everywhere, such as the breeze-block architecture and bougainvillea flowers of her current residence, Los Angeles. This doubling recurs throughout Seremoni Disparisyon—building a dreamlike, proxy world inhabited by elements both real and imagined, experienced and missed.

This exhibition includes work from across the entire series, bringing together photographs, installation, and video to encompass the breadth of Cadet’s imagemaking practice and capacious approach to photography, including vinyl application, photo-sculpture hybrids, and multimedia presentations.

Related Events

Widline Cadet: Seremoni Disparisyon (Ritual [Dis]Appearance) Conversation
October 2, 2026, 7–8pm

Opening Reception
October 2, 2026, 8–9pm

Thursday Art Play: Images of Home
November 5, 2026, 10:30–11:30am

Thursday Art Play: FotoFocus Biennial Artists
November 12, 2026, 10:30–11:30am

Young Adult Lab: Portrait Photography
November 19, 2026, 4–6pm

Young Adult Lab: Observational Photography
January 21, 2027, 4–6pm

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