Superposition Gallery presents the first-ever contemporary collection at Eastville Community Historical Society‘s Heritage House Museum in Sag Harbor: “Mami Wata.”
The nomadic gallery (meaning it operates by using borrowed spaces in different locations) is owned by artist and curator Storm Ascher. While the works were initially installed at the end of June, opening in honor of Juneteenth, the exhibition is slated to be on view at Eastville through November 30.
“Mami Wata came to me after a near-death experience—one that too many Black women carry in
silence,” says Ascher in a curatorial statement. “I had been screaming into the void of a healthcare system that has never taken our pain seriously. My womb was dismissed, delayed, misdiagnosed. It nearly cost me my life. Somewhere between a blood transfusion, anesthesia and awakening, I felt her. Mami Wata—seductress, healer, divine chaos. I embraced indifference at its most holy.
Eastville, a sacred site preserved by Black, indigenous and immigrant women, says Ascher, “this show 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.”
Set within the tiny but mighty Eastville Heritage House (139 Hampton Street, Sag Harbor), the exhibition is named for Mami Wata, a powerful goddess deity and water spirit revered in African and Afro-Caribbean mythology embodying both beauty and danger and who’s often associated with wealth, healing, and love, but can also bring misfortune if disrespected. According to a press release from the gallery, 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 not an exhibition — it’s an altar,” says Ascher. “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.”
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.
“When Storm Ascher reached out about this exhibition opening on Juneteenth exploring Black spirituality, feminine energy, ancestral memory and the divine—I knew I had to be a part of it,” says Bright. “My bloom series portrays women in my community and considers their individual life journey and stories through the language of flowers. I’m delighted to have been able to make a special bloom portrait of Storm for this exhibition, inspired by her resilience, strength and divinity of spirit.”
A total of eight works will be dedicated to Eastville on behalf of the Hamptons Black Arts Council, founded by Ascher back in 2023, to help initiate the newly formed Hamptons Black Arts Council Contemporary Art Collection.
“This marks a new era: the unveiling of Eastville’s first contemporary collection, stewarded by the
Hamptons Black Arts Council,” says Ascher. “A living archive. A radical act of preservation. Once a Green Book destination, Eastville remains a sanctuary. And now, its story will be told in paint, glass, textile, ritual, abstraction, and spirit.”
Admission to the show is free.
