Sasha Phyars-Burgess: Everything Nice
September 8–December 5, 2025
Kathleen O. Ellis Gallery
Reception: Thurs, Sep 18, 5-7pm
“There is a point in one’s life when one begins to realize the world is designed. That there are structures that contain and direct your living. These structures may at times be illogical, irredeemable, or reprehensible, but, nevertheless, they hold the loosely tied knots of society together. This realization, for me, didn’t come all at once but rather in bits and pieces throughout my life. Flows of information that ranged from experiences to learned histories, and which helped me begin to formulate my understanding of the world around me, and my place within it.”
— Sasha Phyars-Burgess
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Sasha Phyars-Burgess’s photographic project Everything Nice traces her family history through Portugal, the Dominican Republic, Florida, and Louisiana, following the paths of sugarcane farmed on colonial plantations and the transatlantic slave trade in relation to her ancestors. The photographs are taken in various locations: Madeira, Portugal, the Dominican Republic, Florida, and Louisiana. The pictures provide clues and details that are layered into a larger story.
Looking back at history and locating the present, Phyars-Burgess is thinking through the idea that we are all living in a history, whether it is acknowledged or not. Once acknowledged, and if we allow ourselves to live with the past, with choices made by and for others, we can access a wider view of the present day.
Through research and picture-making, Phyars-Burgess’s ongoing project affords us a better understanding of globalization and its languages, and shows us that places which at first glance look “ethnic” can be regarded differently.
The work’s title, Everything Nice, is the name of a song by Popcaan. In it, he speaks about the hardships and struggles that people are going through while also joining together in community, getting to the heart of the matter, and being present. This exhibition invites us to slowly look, ask questions, and decipher information to uncover possible and actual answers.
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Sasha Phyars-Burgess.
b. 1988.
Scorpio.
Black.
Alive.
