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derrick woods-morrow actof of becoming an archipelago.tiff

DERRICK WOODS-MORROW

Derrick Woods-Morrow's (b.1990) work is a meditation on deviation and disruption, on

language and representation - the laborious & the playful. Currently based in Chicago,

where he works as a sexual health advocate and activist, and originally from

Greensboro, North Carolina, his artistic practice explores black sexual freedoms, the

complicated histories concerning access to land and the navigation of the American

terrain by black & queer peoples. By deploying a wide variety of media– including

photographic material, ceramic sculpture, film, and narrative performance, he attempts

to reconcile the painful, personal and shared experiences of existing as black & queer

in America. Through fluidly choreographed movement queer folx engage with Woods -

Morrow’s personal narratives, imbuing the moments captured in his photographs with

questions of shared existence, commonality, cultural vernaculars for identifying oneself

as part of a community.

Woods-Morrow received his MFA in Photography from the School of Art Institute of

Chicago in 2016, and was most recently an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Photography

and teaching artist at the University of Illinois Chicago. His work exhibited

in collaboration with Paul Mpagi Sepuya in the 2019 Whitney Biennial; international ly

in This is America | ART USA Today at Kunsthal KAdE (2020); Make America What

America Must Become at the Contemporary Art Center in New Orleans (2020); in the

Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; in YNCI V: Detroit Art Week Expo; in

Photography Now: THE SEARCHERS, curated by Maurice Berger and Marvin Heiferman

at The Center for Photography at Woodstock; and Down Time: On the Art of Retreat at

the Smart Museum Chicago. In Winter of 2019, his second short film, 'much handled

things are always soft' debuted in collaboration with the VISUAL AIDS 30th Annual Day

With(out) ART programming at the Whitney Museum of American Art, Museum of

Contemporary Art LA, The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, The Brooklyn Museum,

The New Museum & over a hundred institutions worldwide. He is the 2021 Edith and

Philip Leonian fellow at the Center of Photography Woodstock, 2021 Bemis Residency

Recipient, and an alum of the Fire Island Artist Residency, Chicago Artists Coalition’s Bolt

Residency, and is a recipient of the 2018 Artadia Award – Chicago.

Shown: Acts of Becoming an Archipelago, 2019, triptych, archival pigment prints, framed, 24x28 inches

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