SHANI CROWE is an interdisciplinary artist who received her BFA in film production from Howard University’s John H. Johnson School of Communications in 2011. Her work centers on cultural coiffure, adornment and beauty ritual, as they relate to the diasporic African, and how these practices function as tools to foster connectivity. She  is  most  known  for  creating  intricate corn-rowed  hairstyles,  then  capturing  them  as  large  photographic  portraits, but her creative output spans photography, fibers, beading, sculpture, performance, and multi- media installation.

Shani is part of the ensemble selected to represent the US in the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale, her  work  and performances  have  been  featured  at The Metropolitan Museum of Art  in New York,  the  Broad  in  Los  Angeles,  on  Saturday  Night  Live  in  collaboration  with  Solange  Knowles,  the  Museum  of  Contemporary  African  and  Diasporan  Art  (MoCADA),  in  Brooklyn,  NY, the  Urban  Institute  of  Contemporary  Art,  in  Grand  Rapids,  MI,  Columbia  University,  and  Soho  House Chicago. She lives and works on Chicago’s south side.