In the site-responsive exhibition Hush Harbor , Tarik Jeremiah Brown transforms the Sunroom into a contemporary, antebellum hush harbor—a secret gathering place of refuge and worship rooted in Black American histories of survival and faith. Through sculpture, moving image, and sound, the installation evokes these shelters—which were often secluded in wooded landscapes—as sites of collective care and embodied belief, grounded in relationships to both land and spirit. Situated at Wave Hill between the woodlands and the Hudson River, the work engages the harbor as both a literal and symbolic site of arrival, protection, and possibility.

The exhibition title also draws from the Proto-Indo-European roots of the word harbor: heri (“army” or “host”) and bhergh- (“to hide,” “to protect,” “to rise,” or “to ascend”), underscoring themes of shelter, collective presence, and spiritual elevation. In so doing, Hush Harbor centers quieter forms of knowledge, inviting movement between what has been obscured or archived and what must be imagined, remembered, or re-envisioned.

About the artist

Tarik Jeremiah Brown is a 2026 Van Lier Fellow at Wave Hill. The Van Lier Fellowship, funded by the Edward and Sally Van Lier Fund through the New York Community Trust, provides early-career support to artists from traditionally underrepresented backgrounds. As part of this fellowship, Brown is participating in Wave Hill’s Winter Workspace residency from February 24 to April 12, 2026, and presenting a site-responsive solo exhibition as part of the 2026 Sunroom Project Space.

Brown works across analog film practices, collage, sculpture, and digital image-making to interrogate the resonances and tensions that surface as the past, present, and futures of the Black diaspora fold into one another. He has presented his work internationally at Koppel Project Bank and Central Saint Martins in London, UK, as well as the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Brown is the recipient of the 2024 Henry & Adeline Collins Prize for his 16mm film installation Blow Your House Down . He earned a BFA from Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts, London, UK. Learn more about the artist at tarikjeremiah.com.