Shanna Merola
Visiting Assistant Professor
BFA, Virginia Commonwealth University; MFA, Cranbrook Academy of Art
Shanna Merola is a visual artist, photojournalist, and legal worker. Her sculptural photo-collages are informed by the stories of environmental justice struggles past and present. Travelling to EPA designated Superfund sites, she has documented the slow violence of deregulation – from her own neighborhood on the Eastside of Detroit, to Chicago’s Altgeld Gardens, and Love Canal, NY. Merola lives in Detroit, MI where she facilitates Know-Your-Rights workshops for grassroots organizations through the National Lawyers Guild.
Professional Experience
Merola has been awarded studio residencies and fellowships through MacDowell, the Studios at MASS MoCA, Banff Centre for Arts + Creativity, Kala Institute of Art, the Society for Photographic Education, Bulk Space, the Kresge Arts Foundation, the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund, and the Virginia Museum of Fine Art. Her collaborative projects include Detroit Resists: A Digital Occupation of the U.S. Pavilion at the Venice Biennale (2016), Oil + Water: Photography in the Age of Disaster Economies with Kate Levy (2017) and Swan Song with Halima Afi Cassells at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (2022). She has shown her work in solo exhibitions both nationally and abroad at the Czong Institute for Contemporary Art in South Korea. Merola has held teaching appointments at Cranbrook Academy of Art, Wayne State University, the College for Creative Studies, and in the Department of Art Practice at UC Berkeley in California.
Significant Publications, Presentations and Exhibitions
SELECTED SOLO + TWO PERSON EXHIBITIONS
2023:Â Swan Song, Room Project, Detroit, MI (Halima Afi Cassells + Shanna Merola)
2023:Â Solvent, The James and Grace Lee Boggs Center, Detroit, MI (Halima Afi Cassells + Shanna Merola)
2023:Â Bellwether, Eastern Michigan University Gallery, Ypsilanti, MI (Clara DeGalan + Shanna Merola)
2023:Â We All Live Downwind, Summer Exhibition Series, Buckham Gallery, Flint, MI (Solo)
2022:Â Swan Song, Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, Detroit, MI (Halima Afi Cassells + Shanna Merola)
2022: We All Live Downwind in conjunction with 1.5 ° Celsius, Michigan State University Museum, Lansing, MI (Solo)
2021:Â We All Live Downwind, Czong Institute for Contemporary Art, Gimpo-si, South Korea (Solo)
2019:Â We All Live Downwind, The Photography Gallery at Riley Hall, Notre Dame University, South Bend, IN (Solo)
SELECTED AWARDS | RESIDENCIES | GRANTS
2023:Â Kresge Arts Foundation Gilda Award in Visual Art, Detroit, MI
2022:Â MASS MoCA, Artist in Residence, North Adams, MA
2022:Â Generator Arts Accelerator Grant, Milwaukee, WI
2022:Â Barbara Deming Memorial Fund, Bearsville, NY
2022:Â Bulk Space Mini Grant, Detroit, MI
2020:Â Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, Artist in Residence, AB, Canada
2019:Â Society for Photographic Education, Imagemaker Award, Cleveland, OH
2019:Â Kala Art Institute, Artist in Residence, Berkeley, CA
2017:Â MacDowell, Artist in Residence, Peterborough, NH
SELECTED PRESS | PUBLICATIONS | REVIEWS
2023: The Brooklyn Rail, Halima Afi Cassells and Shanna Merola: Swan Song, Steve Panton
2021:Â Rejoinder Journal: Climate in Crisis, Institute for Research on Women, Rutgers University
2021: A People’s Atlas of Nuclear Colorado, curated by Sarah Kanouse + Shiloh Krupar
2021:Â With Eyes Opened: Cranbrook Academy of Art Since 1932, Exhibition Publication
2020:Â Urbanautica Institute, Extinction: The World Without Us
2020: A People’s Atlas of Detroit, Wayne State University Press
2020:Â Performance Research Journal, Volume 25 Issue 2, On Dark Ecologies
2020:Â Mapping Meaning Journal, Life After the Anthropocene: Envisioning the Futures of the World
