Biography

Hannah Brancato (she/her) is an artist and educator based in Baltimore, whose art practice is grounded in collective storytelling, and the creation of public rituals to bring people’s stories together. She is faculty at Maryland Institute College of Art, Towson University and UMBC. In Fall 2021 she was a Studio Resident at VisArts, culminating in the solo exhibition, Inheritance of White Silence, a socially engaged project investigating ways to resist inherited white supremacy culture. Hannah is currently working to document the integral role of art in social justice work, through a series of interviews with anti-sexual violence activists called Move Slowly; and by teaching Art x Resistance, a collaborative research based course of her own design. She is a recipient of the 2021 Rubys Artist Grant for Dreamseeds, an installation of textiles, sound, and interactive components that will invite current and budding activists in Baltimore to develop visions for the future, co-created with Sanahara Ama Chandra.

Brancato is co-founder FORCE: Upsetting Rape Culture, an art/organizing collective that produces creative interventions to create a culture of consent, best known for the Monument Quilt. She was a FORCE collective member from 2010-2020, is a 2015 OSI-Baltimore Community Fellow, and as part of FORCE, is the recipient of the 2016 Sondheim Artscape Prize, awarded to one artist or collective in the Mid-Atlantic region per year.

Brancato’s work has received widespread media coverage, including Afterimage, Ms Magazine, Voice of America, Bmore Art, the Washington Post, MSNBC, Surface Design Journal, and Fast Company.