Artist Statement: Shori Sims is an American interdisciplinary artist born in Baltimore, Maryland and now lives and works in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Her work is concerned with the construction of a feminist utopia as part of Black people's vision for the future.Little Girl Urn, by Shori Sims, is the artist’s first solo exhibition of sculptural and 2d work. The exhibition covers early career retrospectives to the present, as well as sculpted archive of Sims’ girlhood experience. The exhibition includes sculptures that were begun in 2018 and completed in 2021. One of the primary installation pieces, “Persistence of Memory (Furniture Replicas)” serves as a facsimile of Sims’ childhood bedroom. Shori comments, “With each piece of furniture bearing my mark, I am laying claim to my own past. In the presented works, I am recalling the experiences that formed my understanding of the world as a Black femme in this late-capitalist era.” This exhibition is presented with support from the Frank-Ratchye STUDIO for Creative Inquiry, College of Fine Arts, Carnegie Mellon University.Shori’s work has been exhibited locally with the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh, Brewhouse Gallery, and Associated Artists of Pittsburgh, nationally with University of Massachusetts, Amherst; and LUBOV, Brooklyn; and internationally with The Run Gallery, Toronto, and fall of 2021 with Warbling, London.Her articles and zines have been published in AP Magazine, SPICY Zine, SKEW Magazine, and Yale’s Asterisk* Journal of Art and Art History. In Fall 2020, Shori created illustrations for Printed Matter, Inc. in New York City’s artist stamp series. She has also worked remotely with the Brooklyn Museum, assisting the education department as the museum’s School Programs intern.