JODY WOOD
Bio
Jody Wood uses mediums of social practice, video, photography, and
performance. Her recent work reimagines routines in poverty support
agencies, aiming to sculpt power dynamics, relationship networks, and
resist stigmas surrounding poverty. Her site-specific work has been
supported by prestigious institutions including A Blade of Grass, Esopus
Foundation, Rema Hort Mann Foundation, an ArtPlace America Initiative
at McColl Center for Art + Innovation, and through residencies at Bemis
Center for Contemporary Art, Yaddo, and Skowhegan School for Painting
and Sculpture. Her work has been on view at Parrish Museum of Art in
Water Mill, NY; Vox Populi, in Philadelphia, PA; Rond-Point Projects in
Marseille, France; The 8th Floor in NYC, and featured in publications
such as The Atlantic, MSNBC, and The Huffington Post.
New Work produced in Sweden
Hunger (working
title) is a new project by NYC-based artist Jody Wood that explores
hunger as a chronic social and physical condition of a post-pandemic
society. The interlinkage between physical and social malnourishment is
inscribed in our neural pathways. Neuroscientists have found that
longings for social interaction are neurologically similar to the food
cravings people experience when hungry. Our need for social connection
is often unspoken and even repressed as a less important, minor
priority; however, the effect of social isolation on our bodies is
tangible and physical.
As
an artist working in the field of social practice, Wood aims to create
artistic interventions that have a concrete impact on social problems.
Using strategies of community reciprocity, the artist will respond to a
growing, collective social hunger by launching a mobile clinic for
social health in partnership with Elijah's Promise, a social service
agency alleviating food insecurity in New Brunswick, New Jersey. By
combining nutritional services with prolonged artistic interventions on
social health, the notion of hunger will be addressed metaphysically,
physically, and socially. Using the visual language of pop-up health
centers in public space, Wood proposes social health as an urgent need,
equally important as physical ailments. Wood will also partner with BKN
AiR to launch the clinic for social health at Björkö Island, Sweden. The
year-long cross-national project will culminate in two solo shows with
Skövde Konstmuseum and Norrtälje Konsthall consisting of audiovisual
installations and public engagements facilitated through the art
institutions.
AiR BKN
Studio 35
Dates: May - June, 2021
Exhibition planning, Skövde Art Museum
Date: TBD
Exhibition planning, Norrtälje Konsthall
Exhibitions
April 22-Sept 11th, 2022 Skovde Art Museum, Skovde, Sweden
October 8 - November 27th, 2022 Norrtälje Konsthall, Sweden