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
LINKS TO THE ARTIST'S MEDIA
http://www.derrickwoodsmorrow.com/
https://www.engage-projects.com/derrick-woods-morrow-bio.html