Whitney Bradshaw

Whitney Bradshaw is an artist, activist, educator, curator, and former social worker who lives and works in Chicago. Bradshaw is an Artist-in-Residence with Chicago Public Schools' juniors and seniors, piloting a new arts program called RE:ALIZE. Bradshaw was previously the chair of the visual art conservatory at the Chicago High School for the Arts for 10 years. Prior to that she was the curator for the renowned LaSalle Bank Photography Collection and later the Bank of America Collection. In addition, Bradshaw was an adjunct professor at Columbia College Chicago. Her photographs have been widely exhibited across the United States and in Zurich. She has had solo shows at the DePaul Art Museum, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, Wave Pool Contemporary Art Fulfillment Center, McCormick Gallery, the Tarble Arts Center at EIU, Adler University, Villanova University and more. Her work has been included in several group shows including Director’s Choice PhotoSchweiz 2021, Female in Focus 2020, Dock6 Design + Art 13 2020, Well Behaved Women 2020, and In a Time of Change, 2021. Her work can be found in the permanent collections of the Museum of Contemporary Photography, the DePaul Art Museum, Columbia College Chicago, Northwestern School of Law, and the Sara M. and Michelle Vance Waddell collection, and has been published in The New York Times, The LA Times, Time Out New York, and Vogue.

To learn more about Whitney's work, check out her website: www.whitneybradshaw.com, or follow her on Instagram: @thewhitneybradshaw

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. It took place in September 2022.

GM: What was your path to becoming an artist?

WB: I was always really interested in power dynamics and social strata. While growing up in a mostly white suburb of Chicago, white flight began. Diverse families would move in and I would hear my parent’s friends, our neighbors, coming over and talking about moving out. Consequently, as a very young person, I recognized the horrendous impact of segregation and the dark history of racism and white supremacy in both the United States and my own community. At the age of 10, I started babysitting for the families that had moved into my neighborhood. It was an incredible opportunity to learn from people who were not like me and my family. I really wanted to understand more about systemic racism, classism, and sexism. I went to college and eventually got my degree in Sociology, with a minor in Women’s Studies, an interdisciplinary program I co-founded and was the first to graduate with a degree in. After that, I worked on the South Side of Chicago with adults with physical and mental disabilities, and later began working all over the city with families whose kids had special needs. […] As a child, I experienced sexual abuse, both within and outside of my family. As part of my own healing and desire to support others in similar circumstances, I enrolled in an intensive training to work with rape survivors in emergency rooms through this organization called Rape Victim Advocates, which is now called Resilience. This was the first time that I had ever been in a community of people who I felt I could tell my stories to. Together, we created a brave space in which we could be vulnerable and share our trauma while being witnessed, truly heard, believed, and supported. The discussions we had in that space had been silenced or dismissed within our culture and families. After that, I worked with rape survivors in emergency rooms in Chicago. I was on call for fourteen hospitals in the city, and anytime someone was raped, I would go to the emergency room and support them in dealing with hospital personnel and police. I stayed with them in the emergency room and provided unconditional support through rape kits, interviews with police, sometimes returning to the scene of the crime with investigators, and often accompanying them to lineups at the police station. Additionally, I helped them find a safe place to stay and get the locks changed on their home if the perpetrator had taken their keys, wallet, etc. I did that work for three years before returning to social work with an early intervention program.

GM: That’s a tough job. It’s interesting that you have such a strong background in both community and social work. How did this translate into an art practice?

WB: After working in social services for several years, I felt the need to do something different that would feed and nurture myself. After witnessing so much trauma, I needed to recharge and care for myself. I decided to go to graduate school for photography; I had been making pictures since I was a kid and always wanted to be an artist. (Continued)

While doing social work, I rented darkroom space through the Chicago Park District and took a photography class. Every Friday night, I would stay in and process film that I shot during the week, and began showing my work in local restaurants and coffeehouses. I had never really taken myself seriously as an artist, but I really wanted to give it a shot, so I put a portfolio together and picked a three-year MFA program to apply to. I wanted to get as much studio time as possible and ultimately be able to teach. To my surprise, I was accepted into the Columbia College Chicago graduate program. While working towards my degree, I was an adjunct professor and an assistant registrar and curatorial assistant at The Museum of Contemporary Photography. My visual thesis, “Scars” , was a beautiful melding of both my social work and my photography practices. Over the course of three years, I worked with a group of 9 people who had survived trauma that left physical marks. The project was intimate, empowering, and transformative for us all. It was the first project in which I truly found my voice as an artist, thus laying the groundwork for subsequent projects, including OUTCRY.

GM: How do you practice or advocate for creative activism? Why is it important to you?

WB: I have always felt that it’s important to empower communities by creating space for people to be able to share their experiences. I love art and its potential to communicate and connect in unusual and sometimes meaningful ways. Art can be incredibly powerful, but oftentimes it is only seen by artists who go to art spaces. The white cubes, you know? (Laughs) Another thing about art is that it’s often attached to access, which is an equity issue in and of itself. I want to create art and spaces that are accessible to all people, and the only way that our very segregated society is going to be able to really come together is to create spaces that are truly and intentionally intersectional. Having an art practice that allows for that and creates space for all of those things is a continuation of my interest in supporting and empowering communities of all kinds.

Installation view of OUTCRY at McCormick Gallery (Chicago, IL), July - October 2021. Courtesy of the artist

GM: Speaking of accessibility, your project OUTCRY is currently being shown at BAMPFA via the large public screen outside of the main galleries. This means that anyone can see it, whether they’re walking/biking/driving by, and they also don’t have to pay an entrance fee.

WB: Exactly! I am thrilled about the exhibition at BAMPFA, especially because it’s so massive and so public. I am also extremely excited to have it up through the midterm elections. During the pandemic, three of the OUTCRY portraits were included in an exhibition titled “In a Time of Change” , a collaboration between SaveArtSpace and the Colorado Photographic Art Center. That was the first time the work was shown outside of a museum or gallery, and it was game changing. The images were very large and displayed on billboards, making them accessible by all. The exhibition at BAMPFA is the first time I’ve had the opportunity to present such a large portion of the project (100 of the 400 portraits) at such a monumental scale (70 x 100 ft) on a public screen. It is incredibly impactful, and I intend to continue seeking out ways to share the series in this way so that it can reach more people.

GM: Could you discuss the conception and evolution of OUTCRY?

WB: I conceived of the project when Trump was elected. I was absolutely irate that this racist, xenophobic predator had just become the leader of the “free world. " I put the project off for a couple of years because I had a full-time job and was raising my daughter, but I felt an urgent need to create a space for womxn to build intersectional community, practice speaking up and out for ourselves, and release our emotions related to the political climate or our experiences as womxn in a white supremacist patriarchal society. The project is open to all womxn, including non-binary and trans folks. Additionally, I hoped to help propel the revolutionary #MeToo Movement forward, as it was gaining a lot of steam and real change was beginning to happen. (Continued)

Installation view of OUTCRY at BAMPFA (Berkeley, CA), July - November 2022. Courtesy of the artist

[…] I intentionally brought several groups of womxn together for the project who did not know each other and were of different ages, backgrounds, races, ethnicities, and abilities, in order to create a truly intersectional space that would build empathy, understanding, and foster intimate connections. Nobody’s experience is the same, and even though as womxn we have some shared experiences, the systems of inequality in place involving race, class, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, ability, and other forms of discrimination intersect within our unique identities, thus resulting in a myriad of experiences and varying degrees of privilege and trauma. My hope is that OUTCRY encourages more connections across identities and that everyone can see themselves or someone they know represented in this work. Unlike the current exhibition at BAMPFA, OUTCRY has usually been shown in a museum/gallery as a floor to ceiling installation of as many of the 400 photographs as possible. A short documentary video made by one of the participants, Anamarie Edwards, accompanies it. This video presents an Outcry Scream Session, which provides the audience with a glimpse into the myriad of reasons why womxn take part in the project. (Continued)

Adia, 2018 from the series OUTCRY. Courtesy of the artist

Jin, 2018 from the series OUTCRY. Courtesy of the artist At BAMPFA, I sequenced 100 of the 400 portraits into a video loop that includes a bit of text every 25 portraits in order to provide the viewer with some context. The text briefly explains the project and includes a quote from Audre Lorde: “Your silence will not protect you. ” When seen en masse, the OUTCRY portraits constitute a monumental act of collective resistance by an intersectional community of extremely powerful womxn, whose representations alone challenge the patriarchy. Since Roe v. Wade was reversed, I have felt an urgency around getting the project out more publicly and to states that have banished and/or criminalized abortion. My hope is that the work will implore people to support womxn’s rights, vote in ways that uphold a womxn’s right to choose, and stop the extreme right from continuing to chip away at all of our civil rights. I have an upcoming show at Atlanta Contemporary in Atlanta, Georgia, and I’m trying to get shows in Florida and Texas.

GM: Is OUTCRY an ongoing project?

WB: Yes! Everywhere the project travels, I engage the community in what I call Outcry Scream Sessions. I started the project on the day of the 2018 Women’s March. Before going to the march, I reached out to three of my neighbors to see if they’d be willing to try out this scream session idea. They all agreed to do it and were excited about it. One of them is a Black womxn teacher, another is white and works for The Chicago Tribune, and the third is a Latinx womxn who is an academic dean. My partner was getting a haircut that day; his stylist was upset because she couldn’t go to march due to work, so he told her about my project and suggested she join us for the session. She said, “Hell yeah!” and brought a friend. The experience was powerful – we chatted over some drinks and snacks, I talked about why I wanted to start the project, and shared intimate stories about how my voice has saved me, as did others. We then practiced screaming together, and finally took turns getting in front of the camera. (Continued)

Each participant got to choose whether to scream alone or with the support of the group. No one ever has to scream alone if they don’t want to. That first night set the course for the rest of the sessions, as each session has its own chemistry. Before the pandemic, I held scream sessions at my house pretty regularly, and it was all word of mouth. Womxn who came to the sessions would tell other womxn, or people would reach out to me, and then I would organize intersectional scream sessions. The project changes with whatever’s going on with the participants personally, politically, and socially. I held a number of scream sessions during the pandemic, and those were very different. Those portraits aren’t in the BAMPFA exhibition because they weren’t made in a studio setting. Instead, they were made outside, with everyone wearing masks and social distancing. During the pandemic, people were really struggling for a multitude of reasons and the resulting sessions were intense, powerful, healing, and even fun! Much of the sentiment that came up during the pandemic resurfaces in different ways in other sessions; everyone comes to OUTCRY for different reasons and shares whatever they wish to. Leslie, 2018 from the series OUTCRY. Courtesy of the artist

GM: What are your hopes for the upcoming midterm elections?

WB: It’s horrendous that Roe was reversed, but I hope that this is going to make a shift in Republican lead states. We’ve already seen changes in Kansas and Alaska, which is promising. I’m feeling hopeful that the majority in this country are enraged over womxn’s rights being taken away, and understand that this is just the beginning of the Republican assault on all of our civil rights. I’d really like to see some changes made to the Supreme Court; to start with, no more lifetime appointments - that’s a major issue. I hope that everyone who believes in a womxn’s right to control their bodies and have the right to choose will get out and vote for decidedly pro-choice candidates. I also hope that OUTCRY will continue to provide support to womxn during these horrendous times and encourage people to speak out whenever and wherever they need to, including at the ballot box.

GM: Besides OUTCRY, what are some projects you’re currently working on?

WB: I attended The Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival for many years. The festival began in 1976 as a radical feminist space and existed for 40 years; like OUTCRY, cis-men were not allowed. For me, this space was absolutely transformative. I’m really interested in how many of us create utopian communities to support ourselves. A couple of months ago, I had the incredible opportunity to visit the festival’s physical archive and conduct research. I also found the photographs that I took at the festival when I began attending in the late 80’s and printed those out. I’m still in the research phase and am not sure where this will wind up, but I am interested in sharing my experience while investigating utopian, empowering, and healing affinity spaces. I’ve been working on another project that deals with my own family and the trauma and secrets within it; this project incorporates writing and archival photographs that my dad left for me when he died. I’m moving a little more slowly on that project because it’s a difficult one to do. I started it in 2008, but wanted to wait until my daughter, Ruby, was old enough for me to tell her a little bit about my past. I have another project, titled “Slow Release” , that I just finished when Ruby went to college.

Gerri, 2018 from the series OUTCRY. Courtesy of the artist

I raised her largely as a single parent, and we had this really strong community of women and girls that she’s grown up with and I’ve learned to be a parent with. We started the project when Ruby turned 13 and collaborated on it for the entirety of her high school years; I thought it was an interesting moment to capture, as it was a time when she was separating from me and doing her own thing. This project permitted us to spend time together and share something, which allowed us to remain connected and be able to communicate well when things got tough. We would go to friends’ homes and I would photograph Ruby alone. She’s the constant in the project, as you witness her growing up and individuating over time. Then there are photos of her with the other teens, and then the teens with their mom(s). Again, it’s about community and connecting with a diverse and intersectional group. Currently, I am an Artist-in-Residence piloting a new Chicago Public Schools art program called RE:ALIZE, so I have my own studio there and work with juniors and seniors who are aspiring artists. I’m working on the utopian project with them because I want the students to think about how they can design their own community and empower them to use their own experiences, artistic abilities, and voices to improve their environments and work towards social justice.