Legacy Russell

Legacy Russell is a curator, writer, and artist.

Born and raised in New York City, she is the Associate Curator of Exhibitions at The Studio Museum in Harlem.

Russell holds a dual-major B.A. with Honors from Macalester College in Art History & Studio Art and English & Creative Writing with a focus in Gender Studies, and an MRes with Distinction in Art History from Goldsmiths, University of London with a focus in Visual Culture. Her academic, curatorial, and creative work focuses on gender, performance, digital selfdom, internet idolatry, and new media ritual.

Curated exhibitions and projects include Projects 110 : Michael Armitage, organized with Thelma Golden and The Studio Museum in Harlem at MoMA (2019); Dozie Kanu : Function (2019), Chloë Bass : Wayfinding (2019), and Radical Reading Room (2019) at The Studio Museum in Harlem; MOOD : Studio Museum Artists in Residence 2018-19 at MoMA PS1; GLITCH @ NIGHT, a series of multimedia events exploring digital feminism and celebrating queer nightlife at ICA London (2017); and the critically acclaimed Wandering/WILDING: Blackness on the Internet in collaboration with IMT Gallery and ICA London (2016).

Amongst other recent institutional projects, Russell has organized with Thelma Golden and The Studio Museum in Harlem Projects: Garrett Bradley, a presentation of the artist and filmmaker's multichannel video installation, "America" (2019) currently on view at The Museum of Modern Art. This winter she has also organized the digital exhibition LEAN as part of Performa's Radical Broadcast which will travel abroad and debut in physical space at Kunsthall Stavanger in Norway in March 2020; and This Longing Vessel : Studio Museum Artists in Residence 2019-20 featuring the work of E. Jane, Elliot Reed, and Naudline Pierre, currently on view at MoMA PS1.

Russell’s written work, interviews, and essays have been published internationally. She is the recipient of the Thoma Foundation 2019 Arts Writing Award in Digital Art, a 2020 Rauschenberg Residency Fellow, and a recipient of the 2021 Creative Capital Award. Her first book, Glitch Feminism: A Manifesto (2020), is published by Verso Books. Her second book, BLACK MEME, is also forthcoming via Verso Books.