About Cali M. Banks

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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.

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. Banks is a Visiting Professor of Photography at Grand Valley State University, and also teaches courses through Penumbra Foundation and Santa Fe Workshops. She has served on the faculty for Syracuse University, Indiana University, the University of Colorado Boulder, and Pratt Institute’s Munson Campus. Banks was a 2024 En Foco Photography Fellow, a 2024 Penumbra Foundation Workspace Resident, a 2025 Aurora PhotoCenter Workspace Resident, a part of the 2025 PhotoLucida’s Critical Mass Top 200, and received the 2025 Visionary Project Award through Film Photo Award. Banks is a current member of the Abortion Clinic Film Collective, and has served on the Board of Directors for The Halide Project.

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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