\u201cWidline is taking on urgent questions in a way that feels open, like an invitation,\u201d says Kristen Gaylord, the Herzfeld curator of photography and media arts at MAM. \u201cThe work isn\u2019t just about what\u2019s been lost, it\u2019s about what she\u2019s built in its place.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cadet, who is gracious and thoughtful but reserved, was born in Haiti and lived there until she was 10. Her mother immigrated to the United States when Cadet was quite young, and the photographer joined her years later.<\/p>\n
Her early memories of Haiti are hazy, a feeling she evokes in many of her images. \u201cI remember walking to school together with my sister every morning,\u201d Cadet says, \u201cwearing a uniform and passing these plants and flora along the walk.\u201d Otherwise, she has almost no coherent memory of her girlhood.<\/p>\n
Cadet\u2019s visions of her mother during those early years are also sparse. \u201cOne day she was there, and then one day she wasn\u2019t,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
For much of her childhood, Cadet\u2019s relationship with her mother was sustained through occasional phone calls and, more tangibly, photographs. Once or twice a year, Cadet\u2019s father would hire a photographer to take formal portraits of Cadet and her sister, which he sent to Cadet\u2019s mother. Cadet later found one such photo tucked into a book in her mother\u2019s New York apartment in Washington Heights; in it, the sisters stand side-by-side in complementary red and pink dresses. They wear matching white socks and Mary Jane shoes. Each holds a stuffed animal, grins stretched wide across their faces.<\/p>\n
\u201cPhotographs [were] a way for my mom to keep tabs on us while we were still in Haiti,\u201d Cadet says. \u201cThey were objects that could travel across distance and time.\u201d<\/p>\n Widline Cadet, Si ou ta dwe bliye wout lakay ou (l\u00e8 tout limy\u00e8 yo etenn) (Should You Forget Your Way Home (When All the Lights Go Off)<\/em>, 2021. Inkjet prints. 40 \u00d7 64 in. (101.6 \u00d7 162.56 cm.) Christine A. Symchych and James P. McNulty.<\/p>\n <\/span>\u00a9 Widline Cadet<\/span><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n Cadet reconfigures those memories in her photograph Si Ou Ta Dwe Bliye Wout Lakay Ou (Le\u0300 Tout Limye\u0300 Yo Etenn) (Should You Forget Your Way Home (When All The Lights Go Off).<\/em> The work centers twin women in gingham dresses modeled after Cadet\u2019s school uniforms, their backs turned and faces obscured as they enter a dense brush. Behind them, the camera lingers as if it might follow the girls into the unknown.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n![\"Image](\"https:\/\/assets.vogue.com\/photos\/69fdc73601f89a80af0be7bc\/master\/w_1600%2Cc_limit\/Untitled%2520design.png\"\/)
<\/picture><\/span><\/div>\n