Clarissa Sligh

A self portrait of Clarissa Sligh depicting a photo of an older Black woman with a cropped haircut. She is holding an apple and is surrounding by white paper cranes. She is wearing a red felt crown.
spread with Buddha and text

Bio

Clarissa Sligh is a visual and conceptual artist, lecturer, and essayist based in Asheville, North Carolina. For over 40 years, Sligh has used photography and text with other media to explore cultural, personal and political concepts of memory, history, and place: themes that have roots in her own experiences. When she was 15 years old she became the lead plaintiff in the 1955 school desegregation case in Virginia (Clarissa Thompson et. al. vs. Arlington County School Board). Recent projects based on “transforming hate” (2008 – present) include installations and artist books. Sligh has received awards including an International Center of Photography Annual Infinity Award, Anonymous Was a Woman (2001), and National Endowment for the Arts (1988). She has been a New York Foundation Fellow in Artists’ Books (2005) and in Photography (2000 and 1988). Sligh’s works are in public collections including The Museum of Modern Art, New York, the George Eastman House, Rochester, NY, and The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

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