Brown Arts’ IGNITE Series uplifts the spirit of artistic collaboration across Brown, Providence, the Rhode Island region, and beyond. Ignite your creative curiosity through this multi-year series of programs, activations, interventions, and investigations.

Carrie Mae Weems, inaugural Agnes Gund Professor of the Practice of Arts and Social Justice at Brown University (Spring 2023), is a conceptual artist who unpacks and confronts constructions of race and femininity in the pursuit of new models to live by. Grounded in the specificity of her lived experience as a Black woman but universal in its explorations of family relationships, cultural identity, power structures, and social hierarchy, her artistic practice is primarily photographic but also incorporates text, fabric, audio, installation, and video. Through image and text, film, performance, and her many convenings with individuals across a multitude of disciplines, Weems has created a complex body of art that investigates family relationships, gender roles, racism, and the consequences of power. Weems has received a multitude of awards, grants, and fellowships including the MacArthur Award and the National Endowment of the Arts, among many others. She is represented by Jack Shainman Gallery and is currently the Artist in Residence at Syracuse University. She lives in Syracuse, New York with her husband Jeffrey Hoone who directed Light Work for almost four decades.