Cassandra A. Scanlon (b. 1985) is an artist and designer currently based in her city of origin, Chicago, Illinois. She has a BFA in Fashion Design from the Illinois Institute of Art, and is a 2022 Master of Design in Designed Objects candidate and New Artist Scholar at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Cassandra’s work includes themes of identity and history, through the research of materials and processes that are traditionally utilized in West African ceramics and textiles. Similarly, she juxtaposes this historical framework alongside colonial, modern, and contemporary works created by Black and African American artisans. The amalgam of these methods and materials reflects her efforts to connect cultural heritage and ancestry, known and unknown to her, through the process of making. Building off traditional ways of making, she looks to craft her own processes, allowing her to merge and fill the gaps with what is known, accessible, relatable, and sustainable. By figuratively and abstractly deconstructing these methods, she reassembles these histories in a contemporary materiality and process.
Most importantly, she asks imperative questions such as, what material objects and forms might emerge from this exploration? How do they connect her and the viewer to the past while taking up space in the present?