Award-winning conceptual artist Adrian Piper works in a variety of different traditional and non-traditional art forms, including video instillation, digital imagery and performance, to explore themes of subjecthood and agency, the limits of the self, and individual identity in different social contexts. Her mixed-race background has also influenced her work in her explorations of otherness and racial identity. In 2012 Adrian retired from being “black”, citing the decision as an ‘exciting new adventure in pointless administrative precision and futile institutional control’.
In 2002 she founded the Adrian Piper Research Archive, which acts as a combination between art project and personal archive. Her work is held in collections around the world, including in the Museum of Modern Art, New York and Centre Pompidou, Paris.