About Cali M. Banks

Cali M. Banks (Munsee Lenape/Scottish) is a lens-based artist based in Syracuse, NY. Banks’ artistic practice reclaims identity through auto-ethnographic, experimental photography and filmmaking. Her work explores personal and collective histories, relational intimacies, and the expansion of narrow, flattened definitions of indigenous art. She is interested in the idea of image-making as a time or record-keeper, and being able to manipulate that to recreate memories, history, and methods of healing. Banks’ process disrupts traditional representations through use of distorted, fragmented, and layered imagery, defying the dominant narratives of photography and filmmaking.

Cali M. Banks holds an MFA in Interdisciplinary Media Arts Practices from the University of Colorado Boulder, and a BA in Art and Technology and Global Health Studies from Allegheny College. She manages communications, outreach, and development for Light Work, and serves on the faculty at Syracuse University, Pratt Institute’s Munson campus, Indiana University, and Penumbra Foundation, and has previously taught at the University of Colorado Boulder. Banks is a current member of the Abortion Clinic Film Collective, and served on the Board of Directors for The Halide Project. She was a 2024 En Foco Photography Fellow, a 2024 Workspace Artist-in-Residence at Penumbra Foundation, and is an upcoming 2025 Project Resident at Aurora PhotoCenter.

In recent times, she has exhibited work during Art Basel Miami and Every Woman Biennial London, along with other notable venues such as Smack Mellon, Millennium Film Workshop, Tiger Strikes Asteroid Philadelphia, Atlanta Film Festival, and Anthology Film Archives. Banks also had a recent solo exhibition at the Everson Museum of Art. She is a featured artist in Volume 28 of Nueva Luz, and appears in Issue # 24, #26, and #38 of The Hand Magazine. Banks has also been published on Der Greif, Lomography, Lenscratch, Instant Photographers, and Rolling Stone France.

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