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BRENDAN FERNANDES AT NOGUCHI | BRENDAN FERNANDES AT NOGUCHI | BRENDAN FERNANDES AT NOGUCHI | BRENDAN FERNANDES AT NOGUCHI
As an artist, when you visit New York City, where do you go—what inspires you, grounds you, or keeps you moving?
I lived in New York City for 15 years, and now I’m fortunate to call Chicago home. That said, I visit NYC often, and every time I hit the streets, it feels like I never left. I return to the places that bring me joy, from museums and galleries to dinners with dear friends in the city and Brooklyn. I always make time to visit the Whitney Museum and the Guggenheim, where I’ve had the honor of showing work in the past. I also always stop by my gallery in Chelsea, Susan Inglett Gallery, to catch up and see the latest exhibition. If ABT is in season, you’ll likely find me at Lincoln Center for a performance or maybe two or three. I usually stay in Brooklyn in Fort Greene with my bestie and stylist, Heather Nadine Lake, and we spend time with friends over dinner at Bernie’s in Williamsburg (Our friend Taylor McEwan started it). Of course, I always swing by the Corridor stores in those neighborhoods too.
New York remains a constant source of inspiration. The city’s pace energizes me; it pushes me to move, explore, and take in as much as I can with each visit. I’m grateful it still embraces me with so much love, and that I can continue to call it one of my homes while drawing endless creative inspiration from its cultural landscape.
Can you speak about your relationship with the Noguchi Museum and what this institution means to you both personally and creatively?
The legacy of Isamu Noguchi is something that has deeply touched me personally. When I began researching for my solo show at the museum in 2019, I developed a profound connection to him, not only as an artist but as a hybrid being, someone shaped by multiple cultures and identities, much like myself. His work resists categorization; it exists in multiplicity: fluid, expansive, and open. In many ways, this mirrors how I approach my own practice: intersectional, layered, and ever-evolving.
The Noguchi Museum, once his studio, is more than a gallery; it is a stage for his life’s work. For me, it became a playground: a space to create and explore movement through dance, where I imagine dancers weaving through the cultural resonances of his sculptures, engaging physically with the architecture and spirit of the space. I’m also deeply drawn to the way the museum cultivates peace, joy, and complexity. I’ve spent quiet moments in the garden, reflecting, dreaming, and shaping my own creative ideas. It is a space of inspiration and contemplation, and one where I feel both grounded and free.
Your work encompasses both dance and visual art. How did your path lead you to merge the two?
I’ve always danced and made visual art; both have been integral parts of my life since childhood. Yet throughout my training, I was often told by teachers and mentors that I couldn’t pursue both professionally, that I had to choose between becoming a ballet dancer or a successful visual artist. Still, I pushed forward, determined to find a path that allowed me to do both.
In college, I was a BFA candidate in both Dance and Visual Art. But in my senior year, I suffered a hamstring injury that left me feeling insecure and disappointed. That moment forced a shift in my focus, and I began to lean more deeply into my visual art practice. I stopped dancing for several years and went on to pursue an MFA in Visual Art and Critical Theory.
When I moved to New York in 2006, I slowly found my way back to dance, initially just by attending performances. The love was still there. Over time, I began to re-integrate dance into my work, not through my own performance, but as a medium and a form of collaboration within my installations and films. While I may no longer be dancing on stage, I’ve discovered a way to bring both disciplines into dialogue within my practice. Dance and visual art are no longer separate in my work; they coexist, inform, and expand one another. Together, they function as a political material through which I explore and challenge ideas around the marginalized and laboring body.
Themes of identity, migration, and belonging are central to your work. How do those ideas take shape in your performances and installations?
As a queer, person of color, and immigrant, my work is deeply rooted in personal experience. My identity, migration, and belonging aren’t just themes, they are the framework through which I see and create. These ideas manifest in my practice as both concept and metaphor, exploring identity as something transitional, ever-evolving, and multifaceted.
In my performances and installations, this often takes shape through acts of gathering, collective movement, and shared space. I’m interested in creating environments where people come together in solidarity, in resistance, and in celebration. Sometimes I am physically present in the work, and other times I build spaces that invite others to engage, participate, and move.
These themes are not separate from the work as they are the work. They reflect who I am and the communities I move through, and they challenge dominant narratives by centering bodies and voices that
have historically been excluded or silenced.
When someone encounters your work for the first time, what do you hope they take away from it?
When someone encounters my work for the first time, I hope it prompts them to pause, to think, to question, and to reflect. I want the work to challenge viewers to consider the state of their own existence, the state of the world, and how we might collectively push toward social change.
At the same time, I hope they feel a sense of solidarity and community. My work often invites participation, gathering, and shared experience because I believe that through collective movement and presence, we can begin to imagine new ways of being together in this world.
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Learn more about Brendan's work here.
