OUTCRY

Photographs by Whitney Bradshaw.

On view through Dec. 31, 2025 in conjunction with the Louisville Photo Biennial 

Since 2018, Whitney Bradshaw has been traveling across the United States with OUTCRY, an ongoing social practice project for which she leads women in empowering, therapeutic, and community-building “scream sessions,” photographing participants mid-scream to create a collective portrait of resistance, motivate political action, and build feminist solidarity through radical empathy. The resulting photographs, nearly 80 of which are installed in a site-specific installation at the 21c Louisville, present women’s unbridled self-expression without regard to society’s expectations. As restrictions on reproductive choice, LGBTQ+ rights, and civil rights spread across the United States, OUTCRY brings transformation, amplifying women’s voices with an unflinching belief in their power to make both personal and political change. To date, more than 530 women have participated in OUTCRY. Together, their portraits create a monumental act of collective resistance.

Whitney Bradshaw is an artist, activist, educator, curator, former social worker and documentary film producer whose practice seeks to empower her subjects while challenging the social systems that marginalize and oppress them. Her work has been shown widely across the United States, including solo shows at Atlanta Contemporary, the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, the DePaul Art Museum, Wave Pool Contemporary Art Fulfillment Center, and now here at the 21c Louisville. The Museum of Contemporary Photography, the DePaul Art Museum, Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law, the Hall Art and Technology Foundation and Sara M. and Michelle Vance Waddell collect her work, which has been published in Ms. Magazine, the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, New City Magazine and Vogue. In the Fall of 2023, Bradshaw was named one of New City Magazine’s ’50 Chicago Artists’ Artists. Both she and OUTCRY are the subject of a short documentary film titled OUTCRY: Alchemists of Rage directed by Clare Major and produced by Frankly Speaking Films. The film premiered in San Francisco in June 2024 and was shortlisted for the International Documentary Association’s Best Short Film Award of 2024.