A Chicago-based artist captures women’s frustration and fury with the increasingly draconian injustices perpetrated against them.
Since 2018, I have been traveling across the United States with OUTCRY, a feminist social practice project that leads women in empowering, therapeutic, and community-building scream sessions.
I photograph participants mid-scream to create a collective portrait of resistance, motivate political action, and build feminist solidarity through radical empathy.
OUTCRY scream sessions give women, non-binary, and genderqueer people permission and a brave place to take up space and be loud.
Adia, 2018 from the series OUTCRY
Many participants share stories they’ve never told anyone; some scream for the first time.
The resulting photographs—exhibited in floor-to-ceiling grids, carried as larger-than-life portraits at protests, or mounted on billboards and projected in public spaces—present women’s unbridled self-expression without regard to society’s expectations.
As restrictions on reproductive choice and LGBTQ+ rights spread around the nation, OUTCRY brings transformation, amplifying women’s voices with an unflinching belief in their power to make both personal and political change.
To date, more than 500 women have participated in OUTCRY. Together, their portraits create a monumental act of resistance.
Both OUTCRY and I are the focus of the documentary film OUTCRY: Alchemists of Rage, directed by Clare Major. Since its premiere in June 2024, the film has been screened nationwide, igniting critical conversations surrounding reproductive rights and gender-based violence.
Recent screenings have taken place at The Broad Museum in Los Angeles, the Athena Film Festival at Barnard College in New York City, and the McConnell Arts Center in Columbus, Ohio.
This fall, I will open a solo exhibition of OUTCRY at the 21c Museum Hotel in Louisville, Kentucky. In conjunction with the exhibition, OUTCRY: Alchemists of Rage is scheduled to screen on Oct. 16.
To learn more about Whitney’s work check out her website: whitneybradshaw.com. To learn more about the documentary OUTCRY: Alchemists of Rage and Watch the Trailer go to: outcryfilm.com
