The Institute of Contemporary Art Philadelphia has named Wilmer Wilson IV as the first artist of R+D, its new residency programme, which treats the museum itself as a working laboratory rather than a display space. The appointment, reported in October, puts the Philadelphia-based artist at the centre of an experiment in how a university museum can support research-led practice, drawing on the resources of the University of Pennsylvania and the city's wider cultural networks.

Wilson was chosen by chief curator Hallie Ringle, under the directorship of Johanna Burton, who took the helm in November 2025. The residency is ICA Philadelphia's first formal programme of its kind, and it asks artists to develop new work through a sustained, exploratory process, with the public able to watch that work take shape inside the galleries. The emphasis is on process over finished product, and on intellectual risk-taking over conventional exhibition-making.

The appointment follows Wilson's first solo museum exhibition, SKIRL!, which opened at the ICA on September 26 and runs through February 21, 2027. The show takes the Eastern gray squirrel as its subject, using the animal to examine American identity, urban space and the ecological and colonial histories of the East Coast. New and recent work spans performance, site-specific installation, sculpture and works on paper, alongside a novel Wilson wrote about squirrel behaviour.

Born in Richmond, Virginia, in 1989 and based in Philadelphia, Wilson holds a BFA from Howard University and an MFA from the University of Pennsylvania. His multidisciplinary practice centres on marginal forms of embodiment in contemporary life, and his work has been shown at institutions including the New Museum, the Hammer Museum and the Barnes Foundation. The residency will give him room to extend that research across performance, writing and installation, with public programmes including an urban wildlife walk and a panel on animal life, race and the politics of the city.