Carrie Mae Weems (b. 1953, Portland) is an artist best known for her work in photography but also creates installations that combine photography, audio, and text. Her work is focused on issues that face African Americans today, such as racism, sexism, politics, and personal identity. Weems adapts or appropriates archival images, restages famous news photographs, or creates new scenes altogether. As her work developed, she became more explicitly political, continuing to explore themes of racism while addressing gender issues and the nature of male-female relationships, and focusing on rather complex, dimensional, human experience and social inclusion.

For the project, Carrie Mae Weems coupled her photography with text to spread messages of gratitude, unity and public safety.

Syracuse, NY, 20/05/2020

Artists Respond project was started by the Institute for the Research of the Avant-Garde and the Marinko Sudac Collection. Addressing the current global pandemic, the project aims to virtually present the thoughts and attitudes of neo-avant-garde artists, their energy and the message they have for the present moment. This is the moment in which the world as we know it is on hold and the moment in which we need optimism and solidarity more than ever. We wish for the public to welcome the creative energy of these artists - artists who are ready to point out the state of things, to respond with art and creativity, as they have done in all difficult times in the past.