Artists Space

Shani Strand: Everything Must Be Returned

Opening Friday, June 12, 6-8pm
June 12 – August 15, 2026

Artists Space presents Everything Must Be Returned, the first New York, institutional solo exhibition by multidisciplinary artist Shani Strand. Through her work, Strand weaves together culturally inscribed materials and practices to examine how the visible—objects, architectures, and social performances—operates as a metonym for the invisible: ghosts, infrastructure, and history. For Artists Space, Strand has produced an immersive installation occupying the entire ground floor. It presents a newly commissioned film alongside an expansive display of interrelated sculptures whose materials bear the residue of historical encounter and entanglement.

On the left is an oblong ceramic sculpture of a ghost with its mouth open. In the ghost
Shani Strand, Duppy (Don’t Wait for Karma), 2024, 12.5 x 5.5 x 7.5 in, glazed ceramic, teeth fragments, chain, Empire brick. [On the left is an oblong ceramic sculpture of a ghost with its mouth open. In the ghost's left hand is a coiled chain. The other end of the chain is wrapped around a worn down brick that reads "EMPIRE."]

The film, titled R.I.P. He Deserves It, unfolds as a clown story and revenge fantasy, with the threat of “colonization in reverse” ever-present. Strand was inspired by Denise Ferreira da Silva’s book Unpayable Debt (2022), in which Ferreira da Silva examines the relationships among coloniality, raciality, and global capital from a Black feminist “poethical” perspective. Strand’s film considers the industrialization of wrought iron: from its emergence in Jamaica through the logic of sugar plantation machinery to its appropriation and capitalization by England during the Industrial Revolution. It reflects on how this theft was justified through colonial logics of ownership, extraction, and fear.

The film’s title is drawn from a quote by C.L.R. James on Hegel, while also alluding to Jamaican poet, singer, and folklorist Louise Bennett-Coverley’s (“Miss Lou”) poem Colonization in Reverse. Comprising eleven four-line stanzas, the poem satirizes the Windrush migration—the wave of Caribbean immigrants arriving in the United Kingdom. Strand reflects on the idea of “colonization in reverse” as it relates to contemporary American imperialism.

Guided by the question, “How might we imagine alternative moralities (or moral alienation) as methods for navigating social relations and accessing or evading violence?” Strand draws on trickster figures, including the duppy (a ghost or spirit in Jamaican Patois) and demonic angels, for a new series of sculptures. These figures, arranged across the entirety of the gallery, trace intersections of diasporic and historical narratives at the edges of violence and in spaces of resistance. Made from materials as varied as bamboo, rebar, JJJ Bricks, and ceramics, the sculptures are presented alongside and on top of site-specific resin pools. Together, they evoke geographies, superstitions, and lived experiences structured by violence.

Shani Strand (b. 1995, New York) is a multidisciplinary artist working across sculpture, video and installation to consider ungovernability in a post-colonial and globalized world. She is one half of Sucking Salt, a project that archives Caribbean architecture and aesthetics to diversify architectural history and to assert the Caribbean as a site of material importance and a major intersection of various cultures and colonial histories. Recent exhibitions include the Studio Museum in Harlem, NY (2026); Harkawik, LA (2024); Rachel Uffner, NY (2024); Deli Gallery, CDMX (2023); Rachel Uffner, NY (2022); and HOUSING, NY (2021). She has performed at The Broad, Los Angeles (2022) and held residencies at Automata (2022) and Interstate Projects (2018). She has been published by CARLA (2024), The Avery Review (2023) and Pin-Up Magazine (2021). She has lectured at Santa Monica Community College (2024), Wesleyan University (2024) and Harvard Graduate School of Design (2022). Strand received her BFA from Oberlin College and her MFA from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Lead exhibition support for Shani Strand: Everything Must Be Returned is provided by Arison Art Foundation. Exhibition support provided by Talia Pockhai and George Wells.

Support for Artists Space exhibitions and programs is provided by Lambent Foundation Fund of Tides Foundation, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, The New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in Partnership with the City Council, Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, The New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature, The Keith Haring Foundation, I.A. O'Shaughnessy Foundation, Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, The Cowles Charitable Trust, Milton and Sally Avery Foundation, The David Rockefeller Fund, and the Friends of Artists Space.

    A figure in clown makeup, a black leotard, and polka dot tights jumps through the air against a dark background from which a few lights emerge.
    Shani Strand, R.I.P. He Deserves It, 2026, 10 min 32 seconds, Video and sound. [A figure in clown makeup, a black leotard, and polka dot tights jumps through the air against a dark background from which a few lights emerge.]
    A green star featuring the image of a figure with their hands up and the text
    Shani Strand, R.I.P. He Deserves It, 2026, 10 min 32 seconds, Video and sound. [A green star featuring the image of a figure with their hands up and the text "Colonization / in REVERSE" is superimposed on top of an image of a figure standing in a parking lot, which has been reflected four times.]