Sydney Porter Williams

Artist Statement

My work emerges from lived experiences of grief shaped by mental illness, generational trauma, and the lasting effects of a harmful religious environment. I create from a need to understand, unravel, and remake, using art as a way to process, accept, and grow with pain and loss. Through collecting, deconstructing, and reweaving ephemera, artifacts, sound, and memory, my practice honors grief as something that unfolds and transforms over time.
My installations and performances function as externalizations of my inner life. The objects I work with are often gathered from formative periods when identity was shaped under constraint, loss, or fear. I use research, writing, and trauma-informed self-inquiry to observe personal experience and translate it into material form. I weave together materials such as hair, textiles, gathered natural materials, and personal belongings to trace timelines, memory, and my relationship to loss.
Sound and ritual play a central role in my practice. I work with layered voices, including those of family members, to acknowledge grief as something shared and inherited rather than singular. My work often incorporates the religious traditions of my family, reclaiming these forms as outlets for mourning, remembrance, and growth. Through embodied acts of making, including singing, remaking personal belongings, and marking material surfaces, my process channels grief from my body into form. This practice creates spaces where grief can be honored and held, both personally and communally.