Joy in the House: Brendan Fernandes in conversation with Dionne Irving Bremyer

Join us in a celebration of the craft of Brendan Fernandes, the 2025 Artist-in-Residence in the Notre Dame Initiative on Race and Resilience. They presented the site-specific commissioned piece Moving Through—written in collaboration with Notre Dame students, as well as the duet, Noise See, both performed in the Raclin Museum of Art. Their interdisciplinary course, Katherine Dunham dance workshop, and Tail of Joy engaged the community in exploration of the connections among identity, collaboration, and joy.

Collaborating with the Initiative on Race and Resilience to bring these events to the Notre Dame and wider South Bend community are the Raclin Museum of Art, the DeBartolo Performing Arts Center, and the Notre Dame Arts Initiative.

Brendan Fernandes (b. 1979, Nairobi, Kenya) is a Canadian artist based in Chicago working at the intersection of dance and visual arts. His practice explores race, queer culture, protest, and collective movement through hybrid forms; part ballet, part political action, part queer celebration. A graduate of the Whitney Independent Study Program, Fernandes has received awards from Arts Alliance Illinois, Artadia, the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation, and the Smithsonian. His work has been presented at the 2019 Whitney Biennial, MoMA, the Guggenheim, Getty Museum, MCA Chicago, and the National Gallery of Canada. He is Associate Professor at Northwestern University and is represented by Monique Meloche Gallery (Chicago) and Susan Inglett Gallery (New York). Recent projects include exhibitions at the Pulitzer Arts Foundation and Prospect.6. A major solo exhibition debuts at the Driehaus Museum in 2025.

Originally published at raceandresilience.nd.edu.