dessane lopez cassell
dessane lopez cassell
editor, writer, and curator
 

Select Curatorial Projects

Joiri Minaya: Venus Flytrap

A multi-part artist commission focused on the intertwining of freedom, extraction, and ecology in North America's oldest surviving botanical garden.

Much like the plant this project is named for, Joiri Minaya’s practice often lures the viewer in, dangling beauty and illusion before biting down with its critiques of consumerism and empire. With Venus Flytrap, we reflected on the plants and histories rooted at Bartram’s Garden, including the long legacy of Black communities on its grounds and across surrounding Southwest Philadelphia.

Established in 1728, Bartram's Garden is the oldest surviving botanical garden in North America. From its earliest uses as a hub for Indigenous trade to the role of founder John Bartram in popularizing Eurocentric notions of "modern botany," Bartram's Garden can be understood as a microcosm for the ongoing colonial experiment and a site that encapsulates the complexities of Philadelphia's history. Through Venus Flytrap, we extended our long-running interests in foregrounding the histories and possibilities of local and Indigenous plant life, with an emphasis on revealing hidden histories of labor and anti-colonial resistance buried in the grounds of Bartram's Garden and across historic Kingsessing.

Venus Flytrap featured a site-specific installation, custom botanical-inspired bodysuits, and a series of performances and public programs at Bartram’s Garden in Philadelphia, PA, May-June 2025. Curated by Dessane Lopez Cassell, produced by Farrah Rahaman, and presented by BlackStar Projects with major support from The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage and additional support from the William Penn Foundation.

  • Featuring performances by angel shanel edwards, Cory Seals, Jonathan González, Kingsley Ibeneche, Marguerite Hemmings, and Mawu Ama Ma’at Gora. Choreography by Jonathan González.

  • Textile Production by Serenity Lopez, Russle Thayer, In Vogue Studios LTD, ITA Leisure, and The Fabric Workshop & Museum, Philadelphia

Read my curatorial essay here.

Unraveling Paradise, April 10–May 1, 2022. Co-presented by Metrograph and Abrons Arts Center. Curated by Dessane Lopez Cassell. Trailer courtesy Metrograph.

Unraveling Paradise

A selection of Caribbean films and artist’s moving image that examines illusions of “paradise.”

There’s a powerful myth that’s been reinforced in the Caribbean for centuries. From early tourism campaigns to contemporary media, visions of the region as a tropical paradise abound—each peddling a fantasy carefully crafted for maximum consumption. Framing the notion of paradise as a case study in colonial myth-making, this film series centers instability, mischief, and the mundane as counter gestures to the fantasies that bind the Caribbean in a predatory economic and cultural relationship with the Global North.

  • Featuring work by Sofía Gallisá Muriente (with the New York premiere of Celaje), Joiri Minaya, Natalia Cabra land Oriol Estrada, Esther Figueroa, Johanné Gómez Terrero, and Dalissa Montez de Oca (with the US premiere of Pacaman).

Co-presented by Abrons Arts Center and Metrograph in New York, NY, April 10–May 1, 2022

Read my interview with featured filmmaker Sofía Gallisá Muriente here.

Series trailer for “Women at Work: Radical Creativity,” Brooklyn Academy of Music, August 10–16, 2018, guest curated by Dessane Lopez Cassell. Courtesy of BAM.

Women at Work: Radical Creativity

A film series focused on women artists, intellectuals, and organizers.

  • Featuring films by Kathleen Collins, Ana Mendieta, Sasha Wortzel and Tourmaline, Shirin Neshat, Marjane Satrapi, and Michelle Parkerson and Ada Gay Griffin.

Guest curated by Dessane Lopez Cassell for Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), Brooklyn, NY, Aug. 10–16, 2018

Additional Projects

  • Curator and Guest Juror, Ways of Being Free, Southern Exposure, 29th Juried Exhibition (virtual), Dec. 2020–March 2021

  • Guest Curator, Pleasure & Power: the films of Numa Perrier, Black Women’s Film Conference, Sept. 2020

  • Guest Curator, Talk to me how + Jezebel, Rockaway Film Festival, Queens, NY | Oct. 19, 2019

  • Curator, Juror’s Program: What Happened Here, Iowa City International Documentary Film Festival, Apr. 20, 2019

  • Guest Programmer, Aftermath, Flaherty NYC, Anthology Film Archives, New York, NY, Oct. 1–Dec. 10, 2018

  • Curatorial Research & Exhibition Assistance, Fictions, The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, Sept. 14, 2017–Jan. 4, 2018