Titled after a Zora Neale Hurston short story, E. Jane’s musical multimedia installation celebrates the Black divaBrooklyn–based multidisciplinary artist E. Jane (born 1990), author of the viral NOPE Manifesto (2016), explores the labor and inner lives of Black women while questioning the future of Blackness and queerness. This catalog grows out of Jane’s 2023 solo show at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and features recent work that considers the figure of the Black diva within contemporary and historical culture. Through video stills, performance shots and reproduced zine pages, this catalog serves as an entry point into Jane’s multilayered and expansive practice. An essay by Legacy Russell, originally published in Glitch Feminism, contextualizes Jane’s work within the spheres of Black, feminist and cyber theory. Additionally, new writing by Debra Lennard provides a framework for entering and understanding the artist’s latest work, and past interviews by Lumi Tan and Hannah Girma illuminate the artist’s biography and process.
