JUSTEN LEROY
Justen LeRoy is a multidisciplinary artist who is finding new ways to engage the Black community in a dialogue around environmentalism. With his first exhibition, Lay Me Down in Praise, explored how the Earth’s cataclysmic events are entangled with Black resistance and liberation through visuals and sound. This year, LeRoy premiered his latest body of work, X’ene’s Witness, building on the conversation started with Lay Me Down in Praise at the Marciano Art Foundation in Los Angeles. In Witness, LeRoy orchestrates an opera and utilizes the sounds of Black R&B and soul, along with choreography to spark conversations about climate change–discourse Black communities are often excluded from, despite disproportionately bearing the effects of damage from environmental forces like air and water pollution. LeRoy is also the Director of Public Programs at The Museum of Contemporary Art in L.A., where he produces and oversees public programming for the community. —G.E.