White Woman Gets Black Artist Booted From MoMA’s Safe Space for Black Visitors

The Museum of Modern Art has apologized to London-based Black artist Heather Agyepong after booting her from an installation that was designed specifically to be a refuge for Black museum visitors.

Agyepong took to Twitter after the incident last Saturday to share her story, saying she was at the “Black Power Naps” exhibit when a white woman entered and began laughing. When Agyepong told the woman the purpose of the event—explaining that it was a space “centered around Black people”—she said the woman began to shout and called her and another Black woman “aggressive.”

“So I got kicked out of an exhibition, an installation, centered around Black people and rest,” Agyepong ended the video.

In a Twitter reply, Agyepong pointed out the irony. “Basically they told me. You can never rest!”

In a statement to The Art Newspaper, a spokesperson for the MoMA said the museum reached out to Agyepong and apologized, and will do more to “protect the experiences of Black visitors and visitors from Indigenous communities and communities of color” going forward.

The MoMA is looking into adding more staff and additional signage, as well as more tailored training to be better prepared, the spokesperson said.

The “Black Power Naps” installation is a collaboration between artists Navild Acosta and Fannie Sosa. It’s intended as a space of rest for Black visitors to the museum, inspired by a line—“How can we dream if we don’t sleep?”—from Langston Hughes’ poem “Harlem.”

The exhibit highlights how sleep is often a luxury for Black people, pulling from data that suggests Black Americans are more sleep-deprived than white Americans.

Acosta told The Art Newspaper that the museum didn’t properly resource the installation despite his and Sosa’s insistence. They had encouraged the MoMA “to create direct action, racial sensitivity training, outreach and social media campaigns.”

Acosta said “it is only now” that the museum understands that need. He also shared that in January, they too were told to be quiet in the exhibit by a white visitor.