Photo Credit: Eva Pensis

Dr. Gervais Marsh is a writer, curator and scholar based in New York City, whose work thinks through the possibilities and limitations of relation, intimacy, and irreconcilability. They received a PhD in Performance Studies from Northwestern University, and their dissertation research considered the generative possibilities to envision Black subjectivity, through the work of artists Leasho Johnson, Ajamu X, and NIC Kay, that emerges in an engagement of difficult racial and sexual intimacies, that is, forms of relation that are structured through histories and experiences of violence.

They are the Artist Research Manager on the curatorial team at Creative Time, where they manage the Research & Develop Fellowship, support artist commissions and the Creative Time Summit. They were a recent Helena Rubinstein Curatorial Fellow with the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program and co-curated the exhibition Not Everything is Given . Other recent exhibitions include Contours of the Interior at VisArts Center, To be pained is to have lived through feeling with Canada NYC and Rupture: Interventions of Possibility.

Rooted in Black Feminist thought and praxis, their writing, research and curatorial practices recognize the centrality of difference, dynamics of power and experience as critical forms of knowledge creation. They emphasize experimentation, poetic exploration, and creating alongside thought partners. Their writing has been published widely, including Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art, Denzil Hurley (monograph), The Financial Times, Hyperallergic, C Magazine, The Brooklyn Rail, and ARTS.BLACK, among others.

They have received writing fellowships and curatorial support from the Modern Ancient Brown Foundation, Jamaica Art Society, Terra Foundation for American Art, The Gay and Lesbian Review, and Independent Curators International. They have taught undergraduate/graduate courses focused on Black Feminist theory, praxis and performance, Black queer studies, and visual culture. They were an editor with Ruckus Journal and research interests include Black Studies, Art History, Caribbean Studies and Gender and Sexuality Studies. They grew up in Kingston, Jamaica, a home that continues to shape their understanding of self and relationship to the world.