Shawanda Corbett

Born in New York, 1989. Lives and works in Oxford.

Shawanda Corbett’s studio practice background is in ceramics (vessel making). The craft principles, fundamentals and discipline in ceramics are applied to other mediums, such as dance theatre production (live performance and film performance). This technique is called craft theory. Currently, she is researching how Artificial Intelligence can facilitate craft theory in her studio practice.

Corbett is currently pursuing her practice-led doctoral degree in Fine Art at the Ruskin School of Art and Wadham College, University of Oxford. Her research redefines Donna Haraway's cyborg theory, or the cybernetic organism, as anything mechanical that enhances an individual's life. The research also focuses on the relationship between human beings and technology created with Artificial Intelligence. This is approached through the science fiction genre in film and literature but from a perspective of a differently abled-body (cyborg) woman of colour, so this includes texts, film (visual representation), music in African American history/African history and Artificial Intelligence history.

Her first solo exhibition, Neighbourhood Garden, was held at the Corvi-Mora Gallery in London (2020). She described the exhibit as a revisit of her family’s history as southern African Americans living between Mississippi and New York. The work challenged the history of African American tropes without reducing her subjects to their physical bodies by focusing on the individual’s personality, daily activity or place of residence.

Performances include "breathe." at the NOW Gallery, London, in 2020. “Blackbird in Mississippi”, for COS x Serpentine Park Nights at the Serpentine Galleries in 2019 and  “haar wese” presented at the University of Oxford.