The Brooklyn Museum on Thursday awarded the 2026 UOVO Prize—which recognizes the work of emerging Brooklyn-based artists—to Keisha Scarville, a mixed-media artist that uses fabric and photographs.
Selected by a jury of Brooklyn Museum curators, Scarville is the sixth annual recipient of the prestigious prize, receiving a public installation on the Brooklyn Museum’s Iris Cantor Plaza, a commission for a fifty-by-fifty-foot public art installation on the facade of UOVO’s Brooklyn facility in Bushwick, and a $25,000 unrestricted cash grant.
The artist’s first large-scale installation, Where Salt Meets Black Water, curated by Pauline Vermare, Phillip and Edith Leonian Curator of Photography at the museum, will open on the Brooklyn Museum’s plaza on May 8.
“As a Brooklyn native, I am deeply honored to be this year’s recipient of the UOVO Prize,” Scarville said. “My images, inspired by my Caribbean heritage, occupy a space between two lands. I look forward to realizing this installation at the Brooklyn Museum, a cultural cornerstone of New York City. This prize represents a dream fulfilled and brings me great joy to celebrate the Caribbean diaspora in Brooklyn.”
Rooted in a practice that combines photography, collage, and archival material to explore themes of migration, memory, and absence, the installation reflects directly on Scarville’s experiences as part of the Caribbean diaspora in the borough. Born in Brooklyn to Guyanese parents who immigrated to New York in the 1960s, Scarville offers a tribute to her family by exploring connections between material objects such as fabric and photography.
The museum stoop and adjacent walls will feature vinyl reproductions of striking black-and-white photographs and still lifes, many of which are part of the series Mama’s Clothes. The series overlays imagery onto garments belonging to the artist’s late mother, Alma. Through this dynamic installation on the museum’s plaza, Scarville transforms individual remembrance and loss into communal memory and shared belonging, offering a sanctuary for visitors to gather and reflect. The title of the installation also draws on ideas of care and renewal, referencing the dark, mineral-rich “black waters” found in Guyana believed to carry healing properties.
Scarville’s installation on the facade of UOVO Brooklyn features an archival photograph that her mother purchased when she moved to the United States in the 1960s, and which Scarville has preserved. This image depicting a mother and child is juxtaposed against a garment belonging to the artist’s mother. The installation will be on view until October 2026.
“We’re thrilled to present the UOVO Prize to Keisha Scarville, whose work so powerfully reflects the lived experiences of Brooklyn’s Caribbean community—an essential part of our borough’s past, present and future,” said Vermare. “It feels deeply meaningful for this work to be accessible to all on the museum’s plaza, welcoming everyone into the museum through stories of memory, migration, and belonging.”
