Sondra Perry facts for kids

Sondra Perry is an artist who uses videos, computers, art setups, and live performances. Her work explores what it means to be Black, especially for Black women, and how Black people have been shown in history. She also looks at how being Black connects with technology and making images.

Perry believes everyone should have equal access to the internet and art. She uses free software for her art and makes her videos available for free online. This helps make art and culture open to more people. She also wants to show different ways of seeing Blackness than what is often seen in the media. Perry sees Blackness as a way to challenge control systems and create chances for change.

Perry's Artistic Journey

Sondra Perry studied art at Alfred University, graduating in 2012. She then earned her master's degree from Columbia University in 2015. Since 2019, she has taught advanced video classes at Columbia University.

Her art has been shown in many places around the world. She has had solo exhibitions at The Kitchen and the Institute for New Connotative Action. Her work has also been displayed at major museums like MoMA PS1 and The Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. Her videos have been screened at film festivals and art centers in New York, Paris, and China.

In 2017, Perry had a solo show called flesh out at Squeaky Wheel Buffalo Media Arts Center. She has won several important awards, including the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Grant and the Gwendolyn Knight and Jacob Lawrence Prize in 2017. This prize included a solo exhibition at the Seattle Art Museum and a $10,000 award. Perry was also the first artist to receive MOCA Cleveland's Toby's Prize, worth $50,000. In 2018, she won the Nam June Paik Award for artists working with media art.

Early Works and Themes

Perry's early art pieces often explored identity and history.

Black Girl as a Landscape (2010)

In this video, the camera slowly moves over the outline of a girl's body. Perry wanted to show how art can connect individual bodies to bigger ideas about nature and visuals.

Red Summer (2010)

This photo series shows Perry's grandparents in their backyard, partly hidden by smoke. The pictures remind us of the damage seen in cities like Washington and Chicago during the race riots of 1919, known as Red Summer.

Double Quadruple Etcetera Etcetera I (2013)

This video was shown at the Studio Museum in Harlem. It features a 30-second clip of a man dancing in a white room, repeated for 9 minutes. This work was also part of a traveling exhibition called Disguise: Masks and Global African Art.

42 Black Panther Balloons on 125th Street (2014)

Perry created this piece with a mix of humor and politics. She carried a bunch of shiny Black Panther balloons around town. One photo shows the balloons on a street corner, hiding the person holding them. This creates a powerful and thought-provoking image. She also used similar balloons in her online video, Black Panther Cam.

Lineage for a Multiple Monitor Workstation: Number One (2015)

This 26-minute video uses two screens to show how identity is built and can be explored through traditions. Perry based this piece on her family's story, mixing family memories with songs and computer effects.

Exploring Technology and Identity

Perry's later works often use technology to discuss important social issues.

Resident Evil (2016)

Graft and Ash for a Three Monitor Workstation (2016) at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in 2022

This exhibition at The Kitchen in New York featured several powerful videos. One video, netherrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr 1.0.3, combines images like the "blue screen of death" (a computer error message) with police actions. It also shows images of Black women killed by police, and an avatar of Perry. The video highlights how violence against one Black person affects everyone.

The exhibit also included Graft and Ash for a Three Monitor Workstation (2016). This piece is an exercise bike with three screens attached. The video starts with an avatar of Perry explaining the machine. Her avatar then talks about a study where Black people who believe the world is fair are more likely to get sick. Perry uses artificial intelligence (AI) in this work to show how race and body politics can become too mechanical. She suggests that technology can sometimes make us less human, simplifying complex issues like race and history.

The main video, Resident Evil, looks at how the media shows Blackness. It includes footage from the 2015 riots after the death of Freddie Gray in Baltimore. It also shows Perry entering her family home with Eartha Kitt singing "I Want to Be Evil" on TV.

Eclogue For Inhabitability (2017)

Sondra Perry at Seattle Art Museum in 2017, lecturing for her exhibition Eclogue For Inhabitability.

In 2017, Perry won the Gwendolyn Knight and Jacob Lawrence Prize. This led to her solo exhibition Eclogue For Inhabitability at the Seattle Art Museum. It was the first time a video artist had won this award.

For this show, Perry painted a room chroma key blue, like a "green screen" used in video making. She showed sculptures and a video focusing on her twin brother, Sandy. Sandy was one of many student-athletes whose information was used by a video game company without their permission. In Perry's video, Sandy's video game character explores museums like The Met and the British Museum. This is shown alongside 3D images of artifacts from those museums. Perry's work reminds us that while we live in a digital world where our identities can be copied and sold, this kind of identity and cultural theft is not new.

Typhoon coming on (2018)

Perry created a new sound piece for the Serpentine Sackler Gallery. It went with an updated version of her work Wet and Wavy Looks – Typhoon coming on (2016). This piece was inspired by JMW Turner's famous 1840 painting, The Slave Ship. That painting shows the Zong massacre of 1781, where a ship captain threw 133 enslaved people overboard for insurance money. Perry digitally changes The Slave Ship to look like ripples of skin. This helps reclaim Black history from a past that might try to forget it. She used the free animation software Blender to create this piece.

A Terrible Thing (2019)

In 2019, Perry's exhibit A Terrible Thing was shown at the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland. This exhibit tells a story about the hard work and environment involved in creating art shows. It also highlights the situations around city development projects. The idea came from her research into the history of blacksmithing. She looked at how blacksmithing is a highly skilled job that creates the basic parts for buildings and structures.