Jody Wood

Jody Wood (A '12) is an artist whose work is time-based and performative, utilizing video, installation, performance, and community organization to engage with socially charged content. Primarily focusing on transitional experiences of death, trauma, and social isolation, her work aims to unpack and meaningfully interpret these issues by working one-on-one with members of her community. Her work has been supported by organizations including New York Council for the Humanities, Brooklyn Arts Council, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, and she was a 2014 Fellow at A Blade of Grass. She has screened her community-based work at the 2014 and 2016 Open Engagement Conferences at Queens Museum and Oakland Museum of California, and her work has been exhibited internationally at venues such as FIVAC festival in Camaguey, Cuba, Socrates Sculpture Park in Queens, NY, Vox Populi in Philadelphia, Institute of Contemporary Art Newtown in Sydney, Australia, and Parrish Art Museum in Water Mill, NY.

Beauty in Transition is a mobile hair salon providing beauty services including a hair wash, cut, color and/or style service to willing participants living in homeless shelters. By provoking face-to-face dialogue in a recuperative salon environment, this project aims to facilitate empathetic understanding and to unravel the reductive label of homelessness. The project operated in Denver, Colorado, Philadelphia, PA, Reading, PA, and New York City from 2013–2015. Wood was a fellow at A Blade of Grass, Shelley Rubin’s foundation to nurture socially engaged art.