Overview

Widline Cadet's practice is rooted in photography and includes video, sound, sculpture, performance, and installation. Her work centers her family’s lived experience of immigrating from Haiti to the United States as source material to explore the complexities of Black diasporic life and survival. 

 

Curious about her family history and the generation that preceded her, Cadet began to photograph her family members in effort to expand her family’s existing small archive. However, as graduate studies limited her time and access to family, Cadet turned the camera on herself, examining her own inner self and how it had been influenced by her migration. Motifs in her pictures refer to her past, such as sprigs of the bougainvillea that grew around her parental house in Haiti, and gingham dresses modelled after her old school uniform.

 

As many of Cadet’s relatives do not exist in photographs, Cadet considers her photographs to equally embody someone else. The photographs serve as an intergenerational way of knowing and imaging someone despite never meeting them. 

 


 

Widline Cadet (b. 1992, Pétion-Ville, Ayiti; lives and works in Los Angeles, CA) earned her MFA from Syracuse University after completing her BA in studio art from the City College of New York. She was a 2021–2022 visual arts fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center and a 2020–2021 artist-in-residence at the Studio Museum in Harlem. In 2020, she was a recipient of the NYFA/JGS Fellowship in Photography, the Museum of Contemporary Photography’s Snider Prize, and was named a Lit List finalist. She was also a 2019 Syracuse University VPA Turner artist-in-residence, a 2019 Lighthouse Works fellow, and a 2018 Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture artist-in-residence. In 2013, she received the Mortimer-Hays Brandeis Traveling Fellowship.

 

Her work has been featured in Aperture Magazine, FOAM, The New Yorker, TIME Magazine, The New York Times Magazine, Financial Times, Frieze, Artforum, and Wallpaper, among others. Cadet has exhibited both in the U.S. and internationally. Her work is included in numerous public and private collections, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago; Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; Huis Marseille, Museum for Photography, Amsterdam; Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA); Pérez Art Museum, Miami; Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee; Princeton University Art Museum, Princeton; Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento; and the Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University, Evanston, IL.

 

Cadet’s work is currently on view in the Liverpool Biennial 2025: BEDROCK and she will be featured in Made in L.A. 2025 at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles.

Works
  • Widline Cadet, How Far is Soon?, 2024
    Widline Cadet
    How Far is Soon?, 2024
    Archival Inkjet print
    40 x 60 in
    40 x 13 in
    Total: 40 x 73 in
    Edition of 5 plus 2 artist's proofs
  • Widline Cadet, Cheap Sky, 2025
    Widline Cadet
    Cheap Sky, 2025
    Archival inkjet print and video in aluminum frame
    32 ½ x 89 x 8 in
    82.5 x 226.1 x 20.3 cm
    Edition of 2 plus 2 artist's proofs
  • Widline Cadet, Ant yè ak demen (Between Yesterday and Tomorrow), 2023
    Widline Cadet
    Ant yè ak demen (Between Yesterday and Tomorrow), 2023
    Archival inkjet print, video monitor, and custom frame
    47 x 69 x 5 ½ in
    119.4 x 175.3 x 14 cm
    Edition of 2 plus 2 artist's proofs
  • Widline Cadet, Si Ou Ta Dwe Bliye Wout Lakay Ou (Lè Tout Limyè Yo Etenn) (Should You Forget Your Way Home (When All The Lights Go Off), diptych, 2021
    Widline Cadet
    Si Ou Ta Dwe Bliye Wout Lakay Ou (Lè Tout Limyè Yo Etenn) (Should You Forget Your Way Home (When All The Lights Go Off), diptych, 2021
    Archival inkjet print
    40 x 64 inches
    Edition of 3 + 2AP
  • Widline Cadet, Sòti nan gran lanmou (From Such Great Love), 2023
    Widline Cadet
    Sòti nan gran lanmou (From Such Great Love), 2023
    Archival inkjet print
    40 x 32 in
    101.6 x 81.3 cm
    Edition of 5 plus 2 artist's proofs
  • Widline Cadet, Pou kouri dèyè syèl la (To Chase the Sky), 2023
    Widline Cadet
    Pou kouri dèyè syèl la (To Chase the Sky), 2023
    Archival inkjet print
    20 x 16 in
    50.8 x 40.6 cm
    Edition of 5 plus 2 artist's proofs
  • Widline Cadet, An Echo of Gratitude, 2023
    Widline Cadet
    An Echo of Gratitude, 2023
    Archival inkjet print
    20 x 16 in
    50.8 x 40.6 cm
    Edition of 5 plus 2 artist's proofs
  • Widline Cadet, Wish, 2024
    Widline Cadet
    Wish, 2024
    Archival inkjet print
    37 x 25 in
    94 x 63.5 cm
    Edition of 5 plus 2 artist's proofs
  • Widline Cadet, Nan / pou pout (In / For Everything), 2023
    Widline Cadet
    Nan / pou pout (In / For Everything), 2023
    Archival inkjet print
    40 x 32 in
    101.6 x 81.3 cm
    Edition of 5 plus 2 artist's proofs
  • Widline Cadet, Manyen Distans (Touching Distance), 2023
    Widline Cadet
    Manyen Distans (Touching Distance), 2023
    Archival inkjet print
    50 x 40 inches
    Edition of 3 + 2AP
  • Widline Cadet, Santiman fantom (Ghost Feelings), 2023
    Widline Cadet
    Santiman fantom (Ghost Feelings), 2023
    Archival inkjet print
    50 x 40 in
    127 x 101.6 cm
    Edition of 3 plus 2 artist's proofs
  • Widline Cadet, Jiskaske Enkinite Vini Nan Yon Fen (Until Infinity Comes To An End), 2021
    Widline Cadet
    Jiskaske Enkinite Vini Nan Yon Fen (Until Infinity Comes To An End), 2021
    Archival inkjet print
    32 x 40 inches
    Edition of 5 plus 2 artist's proofs
  • Widline Cadet, Nan Letènite (In Eternity), 2021
    Widline Cadet
    Nan Letènite (In Eternity), 2021
    Archival inkjet print
    40 x 32 in
    101.6 x 81.3 cm
    Edition of 5 + 2AP
  • Widline Cadet, Lili Pad, 2023
    Widline Cadet
    Lili Pad, 2023
    Archival inkjet print
    4 x 6 in
    10.2 x 15.2 cm
    Edition of 5 plus 2 artist's proofs
  • Widline Cadet, Wedding Dress, 2023
    Widline Cadet
    Wedding Dress, 2023
    Archival inkjet print
    4 x 6 in
    10.2 x 15.2 cm
    Edition of 5 plus 2 artist's proofs
  • Widline Cadet, Tèt Nou Nan Tan Kap Vini An #1 (How We See Ourselves In(to) The Future #1), 2020
    Widline Cadet
    Tèt Nou Nan Tan Kap Vini An #1 (How We See Ourselves In(to) The Future #1), 2020
    Archival inkjet print
    40 x 32 inches
    Edition of 5 + 2AP
  • Widline Cadet, An Elusive Echo #1 (Red) , 2024
    Widline Cadet
    An Elusive Echo #1 (Red) , 2024
    MDF and archival inkjet print
    50 x 40 in
    127 x 101.6 cm
  • Widline Cadet, An Elusive Echo #2 (Green) [RENDERING], 2024
    Widline Cadet
    An Elusive Echo #2 (Green) [RENDERING], 2024
    MDF and archival inkjet print
    50 x 40 in
    127 x 101.6 cm
  • Widline Cadet, An Elusive Echo #2 (Orange), 2023
    Widline Cadet
    An Elusive Echo #2 (Orange), 2023
    MDF and archival inkjet print
    50 x 40 in
    127 x 101.6 cm
  • Widline Cadet, A Good Day, 2025
    Widline Cadet
    A Good Day, 2025
    Archival inkjet print in aluminum frame
    4 ½ x 9 in
    11.4 x 22.9 cm
    Edition of 5 plus 2 artist's proofs
  • Widline Cadet, Fourth of July Party, 2025
    Widline Cadet
    Fourth of July Party, 2025
    Archival inkjet print in aluminum frame
    4 ½ x 9 in
    11.4 x 22.9 cm
    Edition of 5 plus 2 artist's proofs
  • Widline Cadet, Gift, 2024
    Widline Cadet
    Gift, 2024
    Archival inkjet print
    23 x 52 in
    58.4 x 132.1 cm
    Edition of 5 plus 2 artist's proofs
  • Widline Cadet, Here and Elsewhere (isit la ak lòt kote), 2024
    Widline Cadet
    Here and Elsewhere (isit la ak lòt kote), 2024
    Archival inkjet print
    32 x 48 in
    81.3 x 121.9 cm
    Edition of 5 plus 2 artist's proofs
  • Widline Cadet, Memorial, 2025
    Widline Cadet
    Memorial, 2025
    Archival inkjet print
    23 x 52 in
    58.4 x 132.1 cm
    Edition of 5 plus 2 artist's proofs
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