Marilyn Nance, also known as Soulsista, is an African-American multi-media artist with a focus on exploring human connections, spirituality, and the use of technology in storytelling. Her photographs have been published in Life, The New York Times, The Village Voice, Essence, and New York Newsday. She is a two-time finalist for the W. Eugene Smith Award in Humanistic Photography for her body of work on African American spirituality. She was awarded three New York Foundation for the Arts fellowships, for photography and non-fiction literature. Nance's work is in the permanent collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of American Art and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture's Preservation of the Black Religious Heritage Project.
Nance began photographing as a child but declared herself a photographer after having worked in the photo studio of Pratt Institute's Office of Public Relations under the direction of Alan Newman. After the studio closed in 1974, she began freelancing for The Village Voice. Her body of work focused on African American Spiritual Culture. She made images of groups such as the Black Indians of New Orleans, Oyotunji African Village in Sheldon South Carolina, churches in Brooklyn and also the first Black church in America. In 1977, she served as the official photographer for the North American Zone of FESTAC 77Second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture, a Panafrican international festival held in Lagos, Nigeria. The festival took place from January 15th to February 12, 1977 and was centered around the theme, "Revival, resurgence, propagation, and protection of black and African cultural values and civilization." Over the course of the month-long event she amassed 1500 images, representing the most complete photographic archives of this major event. Nance served as an artist-in-residence at the Studio Museum in New York City from 1993 to 1994. She gave a lecture on her work to the Library of Congress in 2004. In 1995, Nance became a digital pioneer, developing her soulsista.com website, and in 1996 serving as one of the first internet DJs. In 1997, she developed a digital project prototyping Ifa divination, and in 1999 she curated a digital project for the New York Public Library's Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, putting online more than 500 images of nineteenth-century African Americans. Nance went on to become a Technology Specialist in the New York City public school system, helping teachers and their students use technology as a tool for lifelong learning. In 2017, Nance attended ITP Camp, a 4-week crash course/playground where makers, artists, musicians, creatives of all sorts come to make work, hear speakers on the cutting edge, and collaborate with people from diverse disciplines. Her work has been published in The Black Photographers Annual, Life, The New York Times, The Village Voice, Essence, Aperture, and New York Newsday.
Deaconness Rosa Williams Praying at the Women’s Day ServiceWomen’s Day Service/Deaconness Rosa Williams, Progressive Baptist Church, Brooklyn, New York Women’s Day Service, Brooklyn, New York 1989
Progressive Baptist Church, J. Patterson Singers, Shouting 1989
