Praxis Fellows

Jo Norris-Gaither is a Black Queer Artist predominately working in Ceramic, Film and Collage art. Their work is pieced together through motifs, montages and distortions to challenge the fabrication of historical documentation and memory. By blending together the physical techniques of ceramic, collage and filmmaking through techniques like hand processing of film, analog collage and hand building of vessels they look to highlight the black mythos of daily life and creation for black queer people. 

Their work explores nontraditional vessel forms infusing them with playful bright illustrations that honor past folk craft traditions while engaging in modern perspectives. Jo currently works as a Ceramic Technician at Gasworks NYC, where they completed a fellowship with the Public Ceramics in 2022. Jo has also been a Fellow with the Vanguard Program at Maysles Documentary Center and NPR Next Gen Radio. They also work as a Teaching Assistant with Echo Park Film Collective to facilitate free Super 8 and 16mm Workshops for LGBTQ Youth in the city.

For their Praxis Fellowship, Jo is creating a series of portraits and still-life images using hand-built pinhole ceramic cameras. Taking inspiration from the work of photographer Steve Irvine, Jo’s cameras will be used to take a series of portraits of Black Queer Artists based in New York City, and interconnected still life photos in conversation with the portraits. Jo is exploring slab-building for their ceramic cameras and using analog long form photography: their artistic methods draw parallels between analog forms of documentation and how we use them in the modern day to fight against cultural erasure.

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