Tuesday, March 25, 2025 – DENVER – Museum of Contemporary Art Denver (MCA Denver) today announced its summer exhibition featuring a selection of artworks from the acclaimed New Orleans-based international art triennial, Prospect New Orleans. The exhibition, The Future is Present, The Harbinger is Home: Selections from Prospect.6 will be on view May 23, 2025 – Aug. 24, 2025. Through this exhibition, audiences are invited to explore the role of New Orleans and other climate-vulnerable regions of the world, as points of departure for examining our collective future as it relates to climate change, legacies of colonialism and definitions of belonging and home.

“By presenting Prospect’s first exhibition outside New Orleans, MCA Denver is thrilled to bring artworks by a wide range of groundbreaking artists to our community in Colorado, which is wrestling with its own dynamics related to climate change, belonging, and systemic legacies." said Miranda Lash, the Ellen Bruss Chief Curator at MCA Denver. “Looking to New Orleans as a case study, we are invited to ponder how we in Denver will define home, celebration, and community as we move into the future."

“Artists present possibilities for ways forward, in times of uncertainty, questioning, and evolution,” says Ebony G. Patterson, artist and 2024 MacArthur “Genius” Fellow. “This is an opportunity to wrestle with these very questions, postured by these artists, that have been long unfolding globally, and to consider its own imprint in the global discourse.” Patterson adds.

Situating New Orleans as a harbinger (already living in the “future” that other places will experience) and as a home (a beloved place of community, connection and celebration), the exhibition features more than sixty newly commissioned artworks by 19 artists. The works include sculpture, painting, drawing, video, large-scale installations, and live performance. This exhibition represents the first time in Prospect's history that an excerpt from this multi-venue triennial has traveled outside of its originating city. The original presentation of the triennial Prospect.6: The Future is Present, the Harbinger is Home was on view in New Orleans from November 2, 2024 to February 2, 2025 and included 51 artists whose artworks were shown across 21 venues. The exhibition’s presence in New Orleans gained national and international attention from publishers like Frieze, The Art Newspaper, Forbes, and ARTnews.

Teresa Baker, *Tracing the Dirt*, 2024. Installation view at Ford Motor Plant, Prospect.6: *The Future Is Present, The Harbinger Is Home* (Nov 2, 2024–Feb 2, 2025). Commissioned by Prospect.6. Image courtesy of the artist and Prospect New Orleans. Photo by Alex Marks.

The artworks in the exhibition orient issues within New Orleans in the context of the “global majority,” a term used to refer to people of Indigenous, African, Asian, Latin American, and multi-heritage descent, who constitute at least eighty percent of the global population. New Orleans and places like it are thereby approached as gifts to the rest of the world, offering lessons and examples for how to live in constant negotiation with the weather, grounded within a community that reflects the global majority and in direct proximity to the effects and aftereffects of colonial and extractive economies.

Jeannette Ehlers, *We're Magic. We're Real #2*, 2020/2024. Installation view at the
Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans, Prospect.6: *The Future Is Present, The Harbinger Is*
*Home* (Nov 2, 2024–Feb 2, 2025). Image courtesy of the artist and Prospect New Orleans.
Photo by Jonathan Traviesa.

The Future is Present, The Harbinger is Home: Selections from Prospect.6 is organized by Susan Brennan Co-Artistic Directors Miranda Lash and Ebony G. Patterson. Lash is the Ellen Bruss Chief Curator at MCA Denver. Patterson is an acclaimed artist, 2024 MacArthur Fellow and the recipient of the 2023 David C. Driskell Prize.

Tessa Mars, In a barren land we make dew, 2024. Installation view at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, Prospect.6: The Future Is Present, The Harbinger Is Home (Nov 2, 2024–Feb 2, 2025). Commissioned by Prospect.6. Image courtesy of the artist and Prospect New Orleans. Photo by Alex Marks.

Prospect.6 is pleased to partner with Phaidon and Monacelli Press on the exhibition's catalog. This lush, 296-page publication features essays, artist conversations, and poems by authors including Antawan I. Byrd, Lora Ann Chaisson, Christopher Cozier, Lash, Joshua Lewis, Ada Limón, Kei Miller, Tuấn Andrew Nguyễn, Patterson, Karisma Price, Quintron, and Maurice Carlos Ruffins. The book also includes extensive documentation of the artworks and programs presented during the triennial's presentation in New Orleans and artwork entries by forty-eight leading scholars. Copies will be available for purchase at the MCA Denver shop in May 2025. MCA Denver thanks the citizens of the Scientific and Cultural Facilities District (SCFD) for their support of the exhibition.

Artist list:

❖ Shannon Alonzo (b. 1988, St. Joseph, Trinidad and Tobago; lives and works in Trinidad and Tobago)

❖ Eddie Rudolfo Aparicio (b. 1990, Los Angeles; lives and works in Los Angeles)

❖ Ewan Atkinson (b. 1975, Barbados; lives and works in Barbados)

❖ Teresa Baker (b. 1985, Watford City, North Dakota; lives and works in Los Angeles)

❖ Andrea Carlson (b. 1979, USA; lives and works in Grand Marais, Minnesota)

❖ Bethany Collins (b. 1984, Montgomery, Alabama; lives and works in Chicago)

❖ Thomas Deaton (b. 1988, Lafayette, Louisiana; lives and works in New Orleans)

❖ Christian Việt Ðinh (b. 1992, St. Petersburg, Florida; lives and works in New Orleans)

❖ Jeannette Ehlers (b. 1973, Holstebro, Denmark; lives and works in Copenhagen, Denmark)

❖ L. Kasimu Harris (b. 1978, New Orleans; lives and works in New Orleans)

❖ Blas Isasi (b. 1981, Lima, Peru; lives and works in New Orleans and Saint Louis)

❖ Brian Jungen (b. 1970, Fort St. John, British Columbia, Canada; lives and works in Treaty 8 territory, British Columbia, Canada)

❖ Cathy Lu (b. 1984, Miami, Florida; lives and works in Richmond, California)

❖ Tessa Mars (b. 1985, Port-au-Prince; lives and works in Port-au-Prince and San Juan, Puerto Rico)

❖ Meleko Mokgosi (b. 1981, Francistown, Botswana; lives and works in Wellesley, Massachusetts)

❖ Tuấn Andrew Nguyễn (b. 1976, Saigon; lives and works in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam) in collaboration with Thảo Nguyễn (performing music as THAO) (b. 1984, Falls Church, Virginia; lives and works in Berkeley, California) and Marion Hoàng Ngọc Hill (b. 1994, New York; lives and works in New Orleans)

❖ Brooke Pickett (b. 1980, Shreveport, Louisiana; lives and works in New Orleans)

❖ Stephanie Syjuco (b. 1974, Manila; lives and works in Oakland, California)

❖ Ashley Teamer (b. 1991, New Orleans; lives and works in New Orleans and New York)

For more information, visit: https://mcadenver.org/exhibitions/the-future-is-present-the-harbinger-is-home.

About MCA Denver

The Museum of Contemporary Art Denver (MCA Denver) explores the art and culture of our time through rotating exhibitions and public educational programs in two locations: the Fries Building at 1485 Delgany Street and at the Holiday Theater in Denver's Northside

neighborhood. Featuring international, national and regional artists, MCA Denver offers a wide range of exhibitions promoting creative experimentation with art and ideas. Through adult and youth education programs and other creative events, the museum serves as an innovative forum for a culturally engaged community.

About Prospect New Orleans

Prospect is a citywide contemporary art triennial and the only exhibition of its kind in the US with a track record approaching 20 years. Every three years, Prospect invites artists from around the world to create projects in a wide variety of venues spread throughout New Orleans. For residents and visitors alike, Prospect is an invitation to experience the city through the eyes of artists. The organization’s most recent triennial, Prospect.6: The Future Is Present, The Harbinger Is Home ran from November 2, 2024 - February 2, 2025. For more information visit: www.prospectneworleans.org