Artist Ricky Weaver Joins Stamps School Faculty

Image-based artist Ricky Weaver will join the Stamps School of Art & Design faculty in the fall of 2024 as an assistant professor of art and design. She will begin teaching in the Winter 2025 semester. She is currently an associate professor at ArtCenter College of Design and Co-founder for The Institute for Black Girls in Film and Media in Pasadena, California. Born and raised in Michigan, Weaver earned a BFA from Eastern Michigan University and her MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art.

Weaver says author bell hooks’ quote about teaching inspires her: ​“To teach in a manner that respects and cares for the souls of our students is essential if we are to provide the necessary conditions where learning can most deeply and intimately begin.”

“To teach in this manner to facilitate the necessary conditions for an embodied learning experience, requires me to be engaged with each individual’s trajectory,” said Weaver. ​“Learning is growth and there are times when the process of growing can be uncomfortable. However, this contemporary moment demands a lot of growth and art can help with that process. I also think it’s important as a faculty member to remember that finding your identity as artist and maker is a tender moment and that our pedagogy must center on holistic care for students.”

Weaver’s object-oriented creative practice allows space for theorizing images in a way that extends beyond the photograph. Her practice interrogates how the body, hymn, scripture, and the everyday appear as images and how that image functions as both archives and vessels. Weaver has exhibited her work internationally, including at fairs such as ParisPhoto, EXPO Chicago, and Art Miami. Her work has been acquired by institutions, including the Black Studies Gallery at UT Austin, The Detroit Institute of Arts, and The Wedge Collection.

In addition to her creative practice, Weaver has been immersed in her research, which is about developing her own ontological framework from the perspective of image and how she defines image. ​“The term image extends beyond the photograph – a thought, sound, feeling — any representation. For my own research, I’m Interested in the accumulation of the images we internalize and how they inform the ways we embody and produce material culture. I call that the meta-archive. I focused on ancestral image-based ontology as a way to account for images we are born with,” said Weaver.

Her scholarly endeavors have earned her opportunities, such as the Independent Scholar Fellowship at The Carr Center Detroit and the University of Michigan Institute for the Humanities exhibition and fellowship award.

Returning to southeastern Michigan, where she grew up and attended school, is especially meaningful for Weaver. With her local ties, she plans to have a studio in Detroit so she can be closer to her community. She told her mother that the only way she would leave California was if she was offered the opportunity to be a faculty member at the University of Michigan.

​“Joining the Stamps School is so exciting for me, professionally and personally,” said Weaver. ​“My grandmother, Audrey Weaver, was a long time U‑M employee. As both an artist and faculty member, reconnecting to the creative community in Ann Arbor, Ypsilanti, and Detroit is particularly meaningful. I am looking forward to this homecoming.”