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Stephanie Brown Featured in National Gallery of Jamaica Exhibition

November 13, 2025
An interior art installation room featuring a large curtain printed with a fire scene, set against a patterned wallpaper, with family photos and a vintage radio on the surrounding walls and furniture.

Stephanie Brown (MFA ​’18), a multidisciplinary artist and alumna of the Penny W. Stamps School of Art & Design at the University of Michigan, recently premiered her latest installation, Boonoonoonous, at the National Gallery of Jamaica (NGJ) in Kingston. The installation is featured as part of One Nation, New Symbols, NGJ’s major 2025 open call exhibition.

Brown, an Atlanta-based artist and daughter of Jamaican immigrants, is known for immersive works that delve into themes of diaspora, memory, and resilience. Boonoonoonous serves as a symbolic bridge connecting Brown’s childhood living room in mid-1990s South Florida with her grandfather’s yard in St. Ann, Jamaica — two spaces that shaped her sense of self. Through collapsing these private settings into one unified environment, Brown explores the way diasporic identity is complex, both fractured and whole, emerging from the pull between ​“home” and ​“homeland.”

Exhibiting at the National Gallery of Jamaica marks a significant milestone for Brown. ​“It has been a lifelong dream to exhibit at NGJ,” she shared. ​“As a first-generation American, this opportunity is full circle and affirms a sense of belonging to this island I call home but wasn’t raised in. One Nation New Symbols provided a platform for me to explore my Jamaican identity from the perspective of the Diaspora. Boonoonoonous offers back symbols that reflect who we have always been and who we are still becoming.”

The heart of the installation is a photograph of breadfruit roasting over an open fire in St. Ann, fragmented across vertical blinds. Guests are invited to interact by opening and closing the blinds, revealing a mirrored surface that reflects their image back into the artwork. This act transforms the installation into both mirror and threshold — a metaphor for generational resilience and transformation, much like the ritual of breadfruit roasting. Visitors listen to a recorded poem voiced by Brown, which honors the complexity of belonging to multiple places at once.

A Black woman with glasses wearing a light green outfit stands smiling in an exhibition space featuring framed family photos on a patterned wall, a vintage radio, and an art installation depicting a fire behind a curtain.
Stephanie Brown in front of Boonoonoonous, installed at the National Gallery of Jamaica.

Monique Barnett-Davidson, Senior Curator at NGJ, noted, ​“Experiencing Boonoonoonous feels like stepping into someone’s dream. This work transforms a personal perspective into a cultural consideration. It brings out a kind of subconscious truth that I think will really resonate with Jamaicans, especially when it comes to understanding how we hold on to our culture and memories while living abroad.” Barnett-Davidson emphasized how the work has become an integral part of the exhibition’s themes.

Dwayne Lyttle, an art educator based in Kingston, added, ​“Brown’s installation is a powerful example of how Jamaican diasporic identity can be articulated in artistic form. It balances deep insight, material and aesthetic choices to generate discourses about geographic proximity, emotional distance, and the assertion of island heritage.”

One Nation, New Symbols showcases 46 artists and roughly 55 works that reinterpret Jamaica’s cultural symbols in the ongoing conversation about national identity, and will be on display at the National Gallery of Jamaica through March 29, 2026.