22 Apr Whitney Bradshaw: OUTCRY (Postponed to August)
Whitney Bradshaw OUTCRY Installation Shot, McCormick Gallery, Chicago, Illinois, August 2021, Wall 5 of 7
IMPORTANT UPDATE
Due to permitting delays beyond our control, OUTCRY has been postponed to August.
Please see below for details.
OUTCRY
BY WHITNEY BRADSHAW
“OUTCRY is an intersectional social practice project in which womxn have the opportunity to take up space, be witnessed and heard, while joining forces in an act of defiance against the white supremacist patriarchy.”
August 18 – October 7, 2023
COLORADO PHOTOGRAPHIC ARTS CENTER
1200 LINCOLN ST, DENVER, CO 80203
Art exhibit viewing times: Tues. – Fri. (11 am – 5 pm); Sat. (noon – 4 pm)
RECEPTIONS & SPECIAL PROGRAMMING:
AUGUST 18, OCTOBER 6, OCTOBER 7
Opening Reception:
Friday, August 18 between 6 – 9 PM at CPAC. This event is free and open to the public.
Closing Reception with Artist:
Friday, October 6 between 6 – 9 PM at CPAC. Artist Whitney Bradshaw will be joining for the closing reception of OUTCRY. This event is free and open to the public.
OUTCRY Scream Session:
On Saturday, October 7th from 10 AM – 12 PM an OUTCRY scream session will be held at the gallery. Artist Whitney Bradshaw will lead a group of 10 participants through a series of practice screams before everyone is invited to express themselves in front of the camera individually. These sessions are powerful, therapeutic, and fun! The resulting portraits will be printed and included in future iterations of OUTCRY.
Sign up is limited to 10 individuals for this event, so we ask that you only register if you plan on attending. All participants will be required to sign two release forms. The first is a model release form allowing Whitney to use your portrait in future iterations of OUTCRY including accompanying press, publications, and the like. The second is a release form allowing Right Problems LLC to use footage from the session in the OUTCRY Documentary film. Forms can be previewed and filled out in advance below.
REGISTER
OUTCRY PROJECT STATEMENT
In 2018, in response to the rise of a predator to the highest office in the land, the long history of silencing of womxn and girls, and in an effort to help propel the #metoo movement forward, I began making portraits of womxn screaming. Through this intersectional social practice project, womxn have the opportunity to take up space, be witnessed and heard, while joining forces in an act of defiance against patriarchal oppression.
I invite groups of womxn who don’t know one another to gather together, effectively expanding our community while providing support for one another as we bravely let out feelings that have been silenced or dismissed under the white supremacist patriarchy. I purposefully invite womxn who range in age, race, ethnicity, and ability to foster a truly intersectional feminist space that encourages empathy. The sessions are 2 hours long and include 5-15 womxn. They are transformative, empowering, therapeutic, and fun.
There is a broad range of reasons why womxn engage with OUTCRY. Many participate to let out anger and frustration with the political climate and their experience living as womxn in a sexist, racist, ableist, and homophobic society. Others come to practice speaking up and out for themselves. Many participants share personal stories about sexual harassment, sexual assault, silencing, and omnipresent micro-aggressions. Participants are never required to share their reasons for taking part and always have the choice to scream alone or with the group’s support.
To date, I have photographed over 440 womxn letting it all out. Together these intimate representations of womxn engaged in unbridled self-expression become a monumental act of collective resistance. The resulting portraits challenge expectations around how womxn—and in particular, womxn’s anger—are portrayed in portraiture and mainstream culture. With Roe recently overturned and womxn’s rights stripped away by SCOTUS, OUTCRY is now more critical than ever.
OUTCRY PREVIEW
ABOUT WHITNEY BRADSHAW
Whitney Bradshaw is an artist, activist, educator, curator, and former social worker living and working in Chicago. Through her practice she seeks to empower her subjects while challenging the social systems that marginalize and oppress them. Bradshaw is currently an Artist-in-Residence with Chicago Public Schools Art Department. She 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 for 13 years. 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, Atlanta Contemporary, 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 Tomorrow, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow curated by Industry of the Ordinary, Director’s Choice PhotoSchweiz 2021, Female in Focus 2020, Dock6 Design + Art 13 and 14 2020 +2022 curated by Edra Soto, Well Behaved Women 2020 at the Lubeznik Center for the Arts, and In a Time of Change, 2021 with SaveArtSpace + Colorado Photographic Arts Center. Her photographs can be found in the permanent collections of the Museum of Contemporary Photography, the DePaul Art Museum, Columbia College Chicago, Northwestern School of Law, Agnes Scott College, Dawoud Bey, and the Sara M. and Michelle Vance Waddell collection and have been published in the Ms. Magazine, the New York Times, GIRLS Magazine, the LA Times, Time Out New York, 48 Hills, and Vogue. In 2018 and again in 2021, WTTW Chicago Tonight ran a segment on Bradshaw’s celebrated social practice project titled OUTCRY.