2023/2024 Capital Artist Resident: Allana Clarke
Photo credit: Tim Johnson
“I‘m incredibly thrilled to become a resident artist at CulturalDC, to share in the mission of connectivity and community building through art. As an artist, the systems in which we often exist can feel exclusionary and siloed from our larger society. CulturalDC recognizes that and, with intentionality, creates space for artists who work in unconventional ways to engage directly with audiences in a more collaborative and generative way. I could not be more excited to join this visionary organization as a resident artist.”
Residency Period
Allana Clarke’s residency in Washington, DC was during the Summer of 2024. Housing during her stay was provided by Jair Lynch Real Estate Partners. Her residency will culminate with an exhibition in CulturalDC’s Mobile Art Gallery.
About
Clarke is a Trinidadian-American artist based in Detroit, MI. Her practice is built upon uncertainty, curiosity, a will to heal, and an insistence upon freedom. Fluidly moving through photography, sculptural and text-based works, video, and performance, her research-based practice incorporates socio-political and art historical texts to contend with ideas of Blackness, the binding nature of bodily signification, and the possibility to create non-totalizing identifying structures.
Clarke received her BFA in photography from New Jersey City University in 2011 and an MFA in Interdisciplinary Practice from MICA’s Mount Royal School of Art in 2014. She is an assistant professor at Wayne State University in Detroit. Clarke has been an artist in residence at the Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture, The Vermont Studio Center, Lighthouse Works, and Yaddo. She has received several grants, including The Toby Devan Lewis Fellowship, Franklin Furnace Fund, and a Puffin Foundation Grant. Her work has been screened and performed at Gibney Dance in NY, Invisible Export NY, New School Glassbox Studio NY, FRAC in Nantes, France, SAVVY Contemporary in Berlin, and was featured in the Bauhaus Centennial edition Bauhaus Now: Is Modernity an Attitude. She recently completed a 2020-21 NXTHVN fellowship, a mentorship program co-founded by artist Titus Kaphar. Clarke is represented by Galerie Thomas Zander in Cologne, Germany.