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Mary Enoch Elizabeth Baxter

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Mary Enoch Elizabeth Baxter
Mary Enoch Elizabeth Baxter at the Montclair Film Festival in 2024
BornDecember 1981 (age 43)
Other namesIsis Tha Saviour
EducationCommunity College of Philadelphia; Penn State University
Occupation(s)Multimedia artist, activist
AwardsAnonymous Was A Woman Award (2024); Soros Justice Fellow (2023)

Mary Enoch Elizabeth Baxter is a multimedia artist, activist, prison reform advocate and speaker[1] based in Brooklyn, New York.[2] She is best known for creating socially conscious visual art, film, and music, and raps under the stage name of Isis Tha Saviour.

Early life and education

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Baxter was born in 1981,[3] and grew up in Philadelphia.[4] As a child, Baxter recalls stealing food stamps from her cousin and cutting them into pieces for use in a collage.[5] She was raised by her mother, who was diagnosed with schizophrenia.[4]

In the sixth grade, one of Baxter's artworks was submitted to a local contest by her art teacher. Baxter won, and her work was displayed in a window at a Macy's department store, across the street from Philadelphia City Hall.[6] By age 12, Baxter was a ward of the state,[5][6] and was also diagnosed with oppositional defiant disorder.[7] At the age of 17, she was accepted to Penn State University to major in African American studies.[7]

In 2007, Baxter was arrested for an outstanding warrant and initially incarcerated at Riverside Correctional Facility.[7] She was 9 months pregnant at the time.[8] Baxter endured 43 hours of labor ending in an emergency C-section, during which she was shackled to her bed the entire time.

Baxter earned an associate degrees in art and design[4] and behavioral health[1] from the Community College of Philadelphia.

Career

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From 2010 to 2017, Baxter focused on making music and a hip-hop artist career.[6] She performs the stage name of Isis Tha Saviour, which she chose for Isis, the Egyptian goddess of motherhood.[4]

In 2020, Baxter's video installation was included in the "Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration" exhibit at MOMA PS1.[9][7]

In 2021, Baxter worked as an office manager for Mural Arts Philadelphia, which is based in the Thomas Eakins House.[6] That year, she released Consecration to Mary, a photographic series based on a "sexually exploitative nude photographs of a young Black girl" taken by Thomas Eakins, a serial sexual predator,[6] in 1882.[10] Baxter superimposes images of herself over the girl in the original photo, creating a new image where the victim is protected.[11][12] Baxter herself has been critical of Eakins, writing an op-ed in the The Philadelphia Inquirer "decrying the city’s veneration of Eakins".[13]

In 2023, Baxter was featured in a solo exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum, titled ""Ain't I a Woman"[2][14][15] and released a song with the same name, a reference to the poem Ain't I a Woman? by abolitionist Sojourner Truth.[16] The museum exhibit presented two works, a short film and a multi-part photographic piece.[14] The song was an original hip-hop composition released under her performance name Isis Tha Saviour.[17] Baxter drew upon her own experiences of being shackled during childbirth to "underscore the through-lines between mass incarceration and slavery".[11] Author Nicole Fleetwood further writes: "Baxter links the experiences of contemporary black women in US prisons to the experiences of enslaved black women, especially regarding their reproductive labor and the disorganization of the black family by racial capitalism."[18]

Baxter served as an executive producer and co-starred with Faith Ringgold in the documentary "Paint Me a Road Out of Here", which premiered at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture on June 14, 2024.[15][17] The film interweaves the stories of Ringgold and Baxter, exploring their efforts to "make change for incarcerated and impoverished women."[19]

Baxter is a co-founder of the Dignity Act Now Collective.[20]

Exhibitions

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Baxter's work has been exhibited at several venues and on television, including African American Museum in Philadelphia, Ben & Jerry’s Factory (Waterbury, Vermont), Brooklyn Museum,[2] Brown University,[15] Eastern State Penitentiary, Frieze Los Angeles,[2] Frieze New York 2024,[2] Martos Gallery (New York), MoMA PS1, National Museum of World Cultures, [15] National Underground Railroad Freedom Center,[15] Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture,[15] Two Rivers Gallery (British Columbia, Canada),[15] Yale Art Gallery,[15] and on HBO’s The OG Experience at Studio 525 in Chelsea.[21]

Awards and honors

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References

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  1. ^ a b c Mary Baxter. Right of Return USA Fellowship.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Frieze (May 1-5, 2024). Frieze Reframe: Mary Baxter, Maria Gaspar and Gary Tyler.
  3. ^ a b c "2024 - Anonymous Was a Woman". Anonymous Was A Woman Award. 2024. Retrieved December 29, 2024.
  4. ^ a b c d Paschal, Chiquita (December 3, 2020). "Becoming Isis Tha Saviour". NPR. Retrieved December 28, 2024.
  5. ^ a b Downing, Andy (November 5, 2024). "'Paint Me a Road Out of Here' unpacks the power, limitations of art". MatterNews.org. Retrieved December 27, 2024.
  6. ^ a b c d e Meet Mary Enoch Elizabeth Baxter. Passerby Magazine.
  7. ^ a b c d e NPR podcast (December 3, 2020). 'Prison To Prison Pipeline': Isis Tha Saviour. Podcast hosted by Rodney Carmichael and Sidney Madden with Chiquita Paschal.
  8. ^ Voeller, Megan (October 10, 2020). "Philly artists are in the vanguard at MoMA exhibit on art in the age of mass incarceration". The Philadelphia Inquirer. Retrieved December 28, 2024.
  9. ^ Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration. Sep 17, 2020–Apr 5, 2021. MoMA PS1. MOMA.
  10. ^ "Mary Enoch Elizabeth Baxter: "Ain't I a Woman"". Brooklyn Museum. 2023. Retrieved December 28, 2024.
  11. ^ a b Adrian-Diaz, Jenna (February 10, 2023). "With Her Lens and Hip Hop, Mary Enoch Elizabeth Baxter Centers Black Feminism". Surface. Retrieved December 28, 2024.
  12. ^ "Ain't I a Woman: Mary Enoch Elizabeth Baxter at Brooklyn Museum, United States". ArtAfricaMagazine.com. February 7, 2023. Retrieved December 28, 2024.
  13. ^ Sutton, Benjamin (December 17, 2021). "Hundreds call for reckoning with American artist Thomas Eakins's troubling legacy". The Art Newspaper. Retrieved December 27, 2024.
  14. ^ a b Brooklyn Museum (January 20–August 13, 2023). Mary Enoch Elizabeth Baxter: “Ain’t I a Woman”
  15. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Biography. Mary Enoch Elizabeth Baxter. American Program Bureau, Inc.
  16. ^ Mirzoeff, Nicholas. An Introduction to Visual Culture. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 9781000891584. Retrieved December 29, 2024.
  17. ^ a b Glasgow, Abigail (June 20, 2024). "A Rikers Island Painting Goes on a Powerful Journey in New Documentary Paint Me a Road Out of Here". Teen Vogue. Retrieved December 27, 2024.
  18. ^ Fleetwood, Nicole R. (April 28, 2020). Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration. Harvard University Press. p. 45. ISBN 9780674919228. Retrieved December 29, 2024.
  19. ^ Amaya, Sofia Escobar; Greene, Emma (October 2024). "Film Response: Faith Ringgold and Paint Me a Road Out of Here". Colby College. Retrieved December 28, 2024.
  20. ^ Mary Enoch Elizabeth Baxter. Miami MoCAAD.
  21. ^ a b c d e f g Mary Enoch Elizabeth Baxter: 2022 CORRINA MEHIEL FELLOW. S.O.U.R.C.E. Studio.
  22. ^ "Mary Enoch Elizabeth Baxter". leeway.org. 2019. Retrieved December 29, 2024.
  23. ^ Art for Justice Fund (2021). Mary Enoch Elizabeth Baxter.
  24. ^ Mary Enoch Elizabeth Baxter. ArtMatters Foundation.
  25. ^ Solomon, Tessa (November 20, 2024). Anonymous Was A Woman Reveals 2024 Grantees in Milestone Year for the Celebrated Program. ARTNews.

Further reading

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