Field and Figure Exhibition | Eli Whitney Museum & Workshop

Location: 920 Whitney Avenue, Hamden, CT

Reception (Open Studios): October 10th from 1-7PM & October 11th from 1-6PM

Exhibition viewing: October 12 - November 7th, 2026 by appointment only

Field and Figure is a program series organized by Eli Whitney Artist artist in residence (24 - 26) Katharen Wiese which includes a group exhibition, workshop series, discussions and catalog. The exhibition includes Alexandria Couch, Kimberly R. Heard, Louise Mandumbwa, Jamaal Benjamin, and Katharen Wiese: five African diasporic artists contending with the relationship between history, figuration, and the living world through more than human subjectivities. Field and Figure functions as a lens through which to connect both historical and contemporary contentions with technology as it relates to systemic violence both environmental, racial and economic. The exhibition proposes the figure as both a human and plant subject in co-evolution. The technology of the field is put into question by the historical site of the Eli Whitney Armory and the generative questions Whitney Srs legacy leaves us with about what American economics means. This month-long exhibition is supported by three artist led workshops, an exhibition, panel discussion and community conversation.

The exhibition uses the historical site of the Eli Whitney Armory campus as a space to think through the role of American industry in shaping systemic violence as it exists historically and presently. The exhibition considers the duality of the legacy of Eli Whitney Sr. as an American whose technologies (namely the cotton gin and the interchangeable parts system) functioned both towards greater industrial efficiency and towards enormous human and environmental cost. The duality of Whitney’s legacy serves as a lens through which to consider the challenges of our own contemporary technological advances in AI, data and beyond. The exhibition considers the site of the armory as a site which “makes peace bad for business”, as the closing of the armory itself implied. This closure becomes a space for potential for the life we now see emerging through the museum, and the business model of the armory itself belies the necessity for new economic models.

Alexandria Couch - Artwork