Photography & Imaging

Education

B.S. Hampton Institute
B.F.A. Howard University
M.F.A. Howard University
M.B.A. University of Pennsylvania

Biography

Clarissa Sligh makes photographic based images, artists’ books’ and text based installations. Born in Washington, DC, Sligh’s life was altered when she became the lead plaintiff in the 1955 school desegregation case in Virginia (Clarissa Thompson et. al. vs. Arlington County School Board). From that moment forward, her work as a student and as a professional took into account change, transformation, and complexity - themes that related to her experiences fostering social justice. Her undergraduate work was in mathematics and painting, while her graduate work included finance at the University of Pennsylvania as well as photography at Howard University. From 1988 to 1995, Sligh was National Coordinator of Coast to Coast National Women Artists’ of Color Artists’ Book Project. She has taught at the School of Visual Arts, New York University and the University of Pennsylvania. Sligh’s artists’ books and essays include What’s Happening With Momma (1988), Reading Dick and Jane With Me (1989), "Reliving My Mother's Struggle" in Liberating Memory: Our Work and Our Working-Class Consciousness, edited by Janet Zandy (1994), "The Plaintiff Speaks," in Picturing Us:  African American Identity in Photography, edited by Deborah Willis (1994), Wrongly Bodied Two (2004), and It Wasn’t Little Rock (2005). Clarissa’s recent exhibitions include The Second Woodmere Triennial of Contemporary Photography (Woodmere Art Museum, Philadelphia, P.A. 2006), The Book as Art: Twenty Years of Artists: Books from the National Museum of Women in the Arts (National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC, 2006), Contemporary Women Artists: New York (University Art Gallery, Indiana State University, Terre Haute, IN, 2005), Picturing Difference/Forming Consensus: Race, Gender and Representation in Contemporary Photography (The Washington State University Museum of Art, Pullman, WA, 2005), Glorious Harvest: Photographs from the Michael E. Hoffman Tribute Collection (The Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA, 2004) and Triennial 9 From and Contents: Corporal Identity-Body Language (Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Frankfurt, Germany with the Klingspor Museum, Offenbach and the Museum of Arts and Design, NY, 2003). Sligh's work is in collections including the Museum of Modern Art, NY, the Australian National Gallery, Canberra, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, the International Museum of Photography and Film, Rochester, NY, and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.  Awards for Sligh’s work include the International Center of Photography Infinity Award (1995), Anonymous was a Woman (2001), fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts in photography (1988) and the New York Foundation for the Arts in photography (1988 and 2000) and for artist’s books (2005) and grants from the Andrea Frank Foundation (2000) and the Leeway Foundation (2006).