Aja Sherrard
About the Artist
Aja Mujinga Sherrard is a conceptual artist whose work explores questions of race, gender, loss, and self. Sherrard grew up in a multiracial and multicultural family between Belgium, Martinique, and the United states. After three years as an Assistant Professor teaching studio art and art history classes at the University of Montana Western, she has recently relocated to pursue her PhD at the intersection of Art History and Afro-Diaspora Studies at the University of Texas at Austin.
Artist Statement
This piece was created as a collaboration with Aja Mujinga SHerrard and Crista Ann Ames as part of their 2018 collaborative exhibition “Them/Me” at the Jodee Harris Gallery at Seton Hill University, PA in 2018. The piece includes two handmade books with text stitched into the covers. One book is marked: “If I were ___, I would:” along a list of social privileges, such as “white” “able-bodied” and “documented.” This book opens to reveal blank pages in which audience members are invited to write answers to the prompt. The second book is marked with the phrase “If I were Free from accountability, I would:” This book’s pages are glued shut, preventing it from being used. These books are meant to be handled and written-in by the audience.