BIOGRAPHY
I am Siobhan An Jie Russell Wood, a photographer, sculptor, plus sized model, ex-fashion assistant, video maker, and poet. My multi-disciplinary studio practice is informed by these experiences. I work in a highly mediated collaged process that mimics the way information is thrown at us and only some of it sticks.
I reckon with my daily insertion into foreign social and racial contexts. My bloodline is a product of displacement because of British and Dutch Colonial rule in the Americas, Asia, Africa, and New Zealand. I am related to the enslaved, slave owners, and enslavers. I look to my own imperialist trade histories to examine the commodified ‘Other’ and representations of diaspora ‘kulture’ within western society and media.
CV
Education
Master of Fine Arts: Sculpture, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, January 2025
Bachelors of Fine Arts, Central Saint Martins, University of Arts London, 2018
Diploma in Professional Studies BAFA, Central Saint Martins, University of Arts London, 2017 London College of Communication Photography Foundation, University of Arts London, 2014
Solo Shows
2021 – Huasniggas, Essex Flowers Gallery, NY, NY, organised by Rufus Tureen & Zoe Argires
Selected Group Shows
2024 – Graduate Exhibition Two, SAIC Galleries, Chicago, IL
2024 – In the Group Chat, Collapse Contemporary, curated by Bambi Kunst
2024 – Black Girl Fight Club: Chrysalis, Canada NYC, Curated by Gabrielle Narcisse and Kendra Gourgue 2023 – Nudes Descending into Lake Michigan, Papa Projects, Minneapolis, MI, Curated by Jaysen Hohlen 2023
2023 ‘Selected’ SAIC MFA Show, Comfort Station, Chicago, IL organised by Jordan Martins
2020 – In Case It Gets Away From Us, an online exhibition organised by Reilly Davidson
2019 – and me / us, Public Storage, Los Angeles
2018 – Central Saint Martins Degree Show
2017 – Skin on Hot Milk, Bones & Pearl Studios, London
2016 – “Is this hell or is this just fantasy?” escape from a loan slide lost from which reality, The Old Police Station, Deptford 2015 – Disseminate: Spread Widely, Tender Books, Soho
2014 – LCC Foundation Graduate Show, London College of Communication
Residency’s & Awards
Poor Farm Residency and Artist Talk, Wisconsin, USA, May 2024.
Nominee SAIC Presidential Scholar Weaving Workshop, The Anderson Ranch Art Centre, Colorado, Summer 2024
Nominee for The Dedalus Foundation Master of Fine Arts Fellowships 2024
Colin Spence Memorial Scholar, Masters of Fine Art in Sculpture at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago 2022, 2023, 2024
Robert H. Bergman Scholarship, Masters of Fine Art in Sculpture at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago 2023, 2024 Honorable Mention for the 2023 International Sculpture Centre Student Awards
Presidential Scholar at the Fabric of Fabrication Workshop, The Anderson Ranch Art Centre, Colorado, July 2019 Recipient of scholarship at The Home School Writing Residency, Hudson, NY, August 2019
Publications
2024 – PAPA PROJECTS, Summer Catalog 2024. 2018 – Veiled & Silenced, a poetry book, self-published. 2015 – CBA Zine, self-published.
STATEMENT
My work is a material rendering of cultural abstraction. The scar tissue of diaspora. An ongoing study and re-appropriation of the process of ‘cultural abstraction’ that I believe my own mixed ethnicity/class body has been through. My ideas around diaspora, identity creation, media commodified ‘otherness’, and assimilation are touched on but my main aim is to unpack the prevalent commodification of Identity Politics within late and Digital capitalism.
