Wildine Cadet

Widline Cadet (born 1992, Haiti) is a Haitian-American artist whose photographic and video-based practice explores family, migration, memory, and the complexities of diasporic identity. Raised in the United States, Cadet often turns to her own family archive as both subject and method, creating images that navigate the emotional terrain of separation, reunion, and belonging across geographic and generational distances. She earned a BA in studio art from the City College of New York and an MFA from Syracuse University.  Working primarily in photography, Cadet constructs intimate, staged, and documentary-inflected portraits that center her mother, relatives, and extended community. Her work frequently examines the psychological and emotional impact of migration, particularly the experience of growing up between cultures and the evolving dynamics of familial relationships shaped by displacement.  Cadet’s images often blur distinctions between performance and documentation, using gesture, proximity, and spatial arrangement to convey subtle emotional tensions. Her work emphasizes the body as a site of memory and connection, capturing moments that feel both deeply personal and widely resonant within diasporic experience. Through this approach, she expands contemporary portraiture to include layered reflections on identity, intimacy, and cultural inheritance. Her recent solo exhibitions include “Currents 40: Widline Cadet” at the Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, WI, USA (May 8–August 9, 2026); a solo exhibition at Nazarian / Curcio, Los Angeles, CA, USA (2025); PHotoESPAÑA at Casa de América, Madrid, Spain (2024); Huis Marseille, Museum for Photography, Amsterdam, Netherlands (2023); and “Se Sou Ou Mwen Mete Espwa m (I Put All My Hopes On You)” at Deli Gallery, New York, NY, USA (2021).  Cadet lives and works in New York.