One’s life sometimes collides with moments in history, causing it to be altered dramatically by external change. Certainly this was so for Clarissa Thompson Sligh. 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). From that moment forward, her work as a student and as a professional – first in math/science working for NASA, later in business, and finally, in the arts – has taken into account change, transformation, and complication: themes related to her experiences fostering social justice. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s Sligh wove together the personal and the political in text-based installations, alternative photographic processes and artists’ books to open up conversations on contestable themes. Her books include:  Reading Dick and Jane With Me and What’s Happening With Momma? A recipient of the ICP Annual Infinity Award (1995) and  fellowships from New York Foundation for the Arts (2005), Anonymous Was a Woman (2001), and the National  Endowment for the Arts (1988), Sligh’s images are in the collection of George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film, Rochester, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, and The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.    

For additional information: www.clarissasligh.com/bio.html.