Fishing Was His Life: The Henry: Seattle, Washington

 

Abney’s exhibition at the Henry includes recent collages and new paintings that center the rich culture and commerce of fishing within the African American community. Her work celebrates a long legacy of identity and self-determination intimately entangled with coastal fisheries while also conjuring the structural inequities that threaten Black life and livelihoods within the industry.

 

Abney’s exhibition extends outdoors with an exterior mural on the Henry’s east façade that provocatively stages the seafood market, evoking relationships between racialized bodies, commodities, and consumption.