Carrie Mae Weems is an influential African American artist most renowned for her visually compelling photography that combines text and audio to capture the particularities of past and contemporary African American life. Throughout her three-decade career, Weems has been an artist in residence and visiting professor at numerous locations. She has been recognized by several institutions and awarded multiple honorary degrees. In January of 2014, a 30-year retrospective of Weems works was featured at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, marking the first solo exhibition featured at the museum by an African American woman. Her works have also been featured in The Frist Center for Visual Arts, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, The Cleveland Museum of Art, The Tate Museum in London, The Minneapolis Museum of Art, and the Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporaneo in Spain. Her list of awards includes The Tiffany Award, The Anonymous Was A Woman Award, and The National Endowment of the Arts, and the BET Honors Visual Artist Award. Weems was also presented with one of the first U.S. State Department Medal of Arts Awards in 2012. Weems is concerned with the historical complexities of race, gender, class, and identity, offering a powerful and thought-provoking commentary on social injustice and inequality. And because that we honor and salute her.