Sharita Towne is a transdisciplinary artist based in Portland, OR, born and raised on the west coast of the US along I-5 —from Salem, OR, to Tacoma, WA and down to Sacramento, CA. She is a research-based video artist and printmaker most interested in creating interdisciplinary community art projects that engage local and global Black geographies, histories, and possibilities.

She is the co-founder of URe: AD Press (United Re:Public of the African Diaspora), The Black Life Experiential Research Group, and is also known as "Mariah Carrie Mae Weems," one-fourth of the post-colonial conceptual karaoke band Weird Allan Kaprow. URe: AD Press is an ongoing collaborative print and media project for Afro-diasporic audiences that produces video installations, screen-printed ephemera, and self-published books of Afro-diasporic inquiry. The Black Life Experiential Research Group is an interdisciplinary collaborative for inquiry and activism at the intersection of art, urban planning, and radical geography. Weird Allan Kaprow creates participatory projects built around appropriating pop melodies and creating new lyrics and music videos that critique institutional and art historical complicity in promoting re-colonial worldviews.

Towne holds a BA from UC Berkeley in Interdisciplinary Studies & Art Practice, and an MFA from Portland State University in Contemporary Art Practices. She has received support from organizations like Art Matters, Fulbright Program, the Precipice Award, Calligram Foundation, The Andy Warhol Foundation for Visual Arts, Oregon Arts Commission, Ford Family Foundation, and the Regional Arts and Culture Council. She currently teaches at the Pacific Northwest College of Art.

WEBSITE: http://sharitatowne.com

VIMEO: https://vimeo.com/sharita