Sag Harbor’s history is black history. The story is not new. Thanks to the newly founded Hamptons Black Art Council and exhibitions like MAMI WATA through SUPERPOSITION gallery, Sag Harbor’s past, present, and future are preserved in its entirety, making space for and highlighting the lives of Black people in history and today.
After a successful launch event on Juneteenth, the MAMI WATA exhibition remains open for viewing through November 30th. Participating artists include: Derrick Adams, Patrick Alston, Jessica Taylor Bellamy, Sanford Biggers, Layo Bright, Michael A. Butler, Alisa Sikelianos-Carter, Renée Cox, Damien Davis, Ellon Gibbs, Ashanté Kindle, Audrey Lyall, Eilen Itzel Mena, Ludovic Nkoth, Tariku Shiferaw, and Khari Turner.
Helmed by Storm Ascher, a longtime Sag Harbor resident, SUPERPOSITION gallery and The Hamptons Black Arts Council preserves and recenters the many elements of black history, experience, and art on a global and deeply local level. “This exhibition sits on the soil of Sag Harbor’s SANS neighborhoods—Sag Harbor Hills, Azurest, Ninevah—modernist Black beach enclaves built by families denied access elsewhere,” says Ascher.
What I found most moving was that the rich and diverse history of Sag Harbor, and the Hamptons beyond, is being cultivated, chronicled, and curated by people of color, not left to the editorialization of onlookers and observers. Exhibitions like MAMI WATA, are an invitation to explore, to learn, to be moved – art often speaks for itself, and, if you’re lucky, you’ll get to speak with the brilliant Storm Ascher.
Named after the goddess deity and water spirit from African and Afro-Caribbean mythology, MAMI WATA is a curation of works deeply rooted in matrilineal restorative energy. Participating artists were invited to embody the complexities that lie in this mythological symbol, from prosperity and fertility to chaos and misfortune.
“MAMI WATA [is] an altar…a gathering of artists who summon the celestial, the matrilineal, the mythic. Their works ripple and reference like the goddess herself—fluid, powerful, plural. Superposition artists draw from memory, migration, and the metaphysical, carrying many worlds inside. Together, we build a legacy of care, resistance, and return. Thank you for joining me in preserving Eastville—a sacred site holding so many Black stories in its soil,” Ascher writes.
The artists selected are each personally associated with the gallery’s curator and founder of the Hamptons Black Arts Council, Storm Ascher. This is an extremely personal show for both the artists and the curator; in fact, there are references to that relationship built into some of the pieces.
With a multitude of celebratory moments, eight works included in the exhibition will also be donated to the institution on behalf of The Hamptons Black Arts Council, founded by Storm Ascher, to initiate the newly established Hamptons Black Arts Council Contemporary Art Collection at Eastville. A labor of love and true intentions, Ascher is working closely with Executive Director Dr. Georgette Grier-Key to ensure a lasting legacy for Black folks in site-specific spaces reclaimed for Black history, such as this.
The Eastville Historical Society Center, the current location for the nomadic SUPERPOSITION Gallery, brims with history and provenance. Sag Harbor Village’s universal appeal, natural beauty, and charm have long attracted black people, establishing a still-thriving community of generational families. Sag Harbor Village has a well-established and black community with many local stakeholders, including generational vacation home-owners.
Among the lasting legacies of black people in the Hamptons, historical memory links Eastville and Sag Harbor with the Underground Railroad and the Harlem Renaissance.
As the Hamptons Black Arts Council becomes more established, expect more exhibitions like MAMI WATA at the SUPERPOSITION Gallery. More information about the artists and works exhibited below.
Renée Cox
A trailblazing artist and longtime Amagansett resident, Renée Cox donated a portrait from her Queen Nanny of the Maroons series, photographed in her native Jamaica. In this powerful body of work, Cox channels the legendary resistance leader Queen Nanny, honoring the strength and legacy of women who, like the founders of SANS communities, shaped history from the margins with defiance and grace.
Tariku Shiferaw
An Ethiopian-born artist, Shiferaw’s Mata Semay series—Amharic for “night sky”—explores mythology, storytelling, and the ancestral practice of stargazing. His large-scale works evoke a primordial sense of space, functioning as sky graffiti and experimental reflections on cultural memory and value systems.
Khari Turner
Turner donated two large-scale works painted with ocean water collected from across the African diaspora. Depicting ancestral elders and West African flora, the pieces reflect on lineage, spirituality, and the cycle of life and remembrance.
Derrick Adams
Adams’ work often pays tribute to the Green Book, a travel guide for Black Americans during segregation, highlighting safe havens like Sag Harbor. His pieces capture the spirit of Black leisure and boyhood while preserving cultural memory through art and philanthropy.
Michael Butler
A seventh-generation resident of Eastville, Butler uses miniature art to magnify the stories of Sag Harbor and African-American heritage. His work is both preservation and portrait, honoring a legacy rooted in the land and lived experience.
Jessica Taylor Bellamy
A Cuban-Jewish artist whose work interrogates environmental toxicity and cultural identity. In one striking gesture, she used the curator as her model—linking the personal with larger systemic critiques of the art world’s ecological impact.
Ashanté Kindle
Kindle donated a work that uplifts the richness of Black girlhood and intergenerational connection. Her themes orbit around the divine feminine, referencing Mami Wata, womb symbolism, and mother/daughter dynamics in vibrant, fluid forms.
Layo Bright
Lagos-born and Brooklyn-based, Bright’s Storm Ascher in Yemọja Blue continues her Bloom series, casting the curator’s face in glowing gold glass. Honoring Yemọja—the Yoruba water deity—Bright crowns her subjects in handblown glass florals, elevating feminine presence through material and mythology.
Audrey Lyall
Lyall transitioned from fashion to fine art, using fabric, collage, and found materials to construct works that evoke shifting deities and feminine power. Her layered compositions mirror the mirage of land in water, blending fluidity and form.
Sanford Biggers
Biggers’ work fuses Greco-Roman architecture with African visual language. His sculptural pieces reinterpret classical forms through the lens of diasporic symbolism, challenging historical narratives with wit and reverence.
Ludovic Nkoth
Born in Cameroon and raised in South Carolina, Nkoth brings a global and deeply personal lens to his vibrant, textural paintings. A longtime visitor to the Hamptons, his work bridges continents and memory, often centered on themes of identity and belonging.
