Torkwase Dyson: Carnegie Mellon University School of Art Visiting Artist Lecture Series

The Robert Lepper Distinguished Lecture in Creative Inquiry

Co-presented by Carnegie Museum of Art and the CMU School of Art

Join us for an evening with artist Torkwase Dyson as she shares an in-depth look at her practice and the works featured in If the word we, 59th Carnegie International. This lecture is free and open to the public.

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Tomorrow Was Yesterday

Tomorrow Was Yesterday is an animation informed by Torkwase Dyson’s ongoing research into oil and gas drilling in the Caribbean seabed. This program immerses viewers in an underwater environment conceptualized by the artist, where the machinery of the resource industry has taken hold.

Dyson’s explorations question: “What is the magnitude of oil and gas extraction infrastructure? Why is there an incomprehensible distance between our everyday lives and the extraction points sprawled across this planet’s seabeds? Seabed mining is a transhistorical issue and I center process as a way of understanding its history and scale.”

Between May 6, 2026, and January 3, 2027, experience the artwork on Wednesdays and select Sundays at 4 p.m. Staff members at the Kamin Science Center visitor services desk will direct you to the Buhl Planetarium.

About the Artist

Torkwase Dyson (born 1973, Chicago, IL; lives in Beacon, NY) has distilled a vocabulary of poetic forms to address the spaciousness of freedom and question the type of climates born out of world building. In 2021, Dyson’s work was on view at Hall Art Foundation, Germany. In addition, her work was presented at the 13th Shanghai Biennale. Dyson has had solo exhibitions and installations at Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville; Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, Chicago; Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education, Philadelphia; and Suzanne Lemberg Usdan Gallery, Bennington College, Vermont; and Serpentine Pavilion, Serpentine Galleries, London. She has participated in group exhibitions at the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, Washington, DC; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; California African American Museum, Los Angeles; Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus; The Mississippi Museum of Art, Mississippi; Baltimore Museum of Art, Maryland; and Parrish Art Museum, Water Mill, New York.

Finding Kresge Theatre

Kresge Theatre is located in the College of Fine Arts building on the south end of CMU’s campus (near the Hunt Library). To find the theatre, enter the College of Fine Arts building from the west (main) entrance closest to the College of Fine Arts Lawn. Street parking is available along Frew and Tech streets or in CMU’s East Campus Garage.

About If the word we, 59th Carnegie International

Organized every four years by Carnegie Museum of Art, the Carnegie International is the longest-running exhibition of international art in North America. The 59th edition is the most collaborative and far-reaching to date — a clear expression of the museum’s founding commitment to the art and artists of our time, at once grounded in our locality and extending globally.

Titled If the word we, the 59th Carnegie International considers the first-person plural as an open and evolving proposition — one shaped by listening, translation, and transformation — bringing together artistic practices that engage shared experience, circulation, and worlds in transition. Drawing from a commissioned catalogue essay by writer Haytham el-Wardany, the exhibition approaches “we” not as a unified subject but as a complex and porous position, attentive to contradiction and change. Across a wide range of media, from painting, photography, and sculpture, to installation, video, performance, and theater, participating artists traverse cultural, political, intellectual, and spiritual geographies that extend beyond national boundaries. The projects emerge through everyday acts, materials, and environments, offering spatially expansive portraits of collective life in the present.

About the Visiting Artist Lecture Series

The Carnegie Mellon School of Art Lecture Series is made possible in part by Elizabeth (Thompson) and Thomas M. Cox (A’29) Distinguished Artists Funds, Robert L. Lepper Distinguished Lecture in Creative Inquiry, and Orville M. Winsand Lecture for Critical Studies.

Carnegie Mellon makes every effort to provide accessible facilities and programs for individuals with disabilities. This publication can be made available in an alternate format upon request. For accommodations, contact the School of Art at schoolofart@cmu.edu or 412.268.2409. Lecture and event details are subject to change or cancellation.