lacey marie woida

photographer . curator . visual artist

photographer . curator . visual artist . poet

BIOGRAPHY

Lace Marie is a self-taught Photographer, Mixed Media Artist and Writer living in Downtown St.Paul, Minnesota.

She is a fat, queer, disabled artist, an aspiring disability justice activist living with CPTSD & Ehlers Danlos and is reclaiming connection with her own body.

She lives life with her three lovely kitties in an apartment that she has made her safe haven. A lover of movies, true stories, sparkly things, and has discovered a new found joy for anything zine related. At the age of 40 she came to a healing place of finally wanting to live. Lace Marie as a person and artist is seeing her intersectional identities come together and root her with a sense of pride, belonging, and purpose. Recently has become disgusted with how medical researchers, even non-profits and pharmaceutical reps are in bed together promoting their own agenda and using disabled rare disease peoples stories to help establish funding. Lacey has quickly figured out that becoming a disability and rare disease advocate is not going to bring about the right changes at real levels. She is now embracing becoming a disability activist, trying to do the inner work that comes with that, in hopes to make real, accessible, inclusive, systemic change. She hopes to use her artwork as unapologetic tool for this as well.

QUALIFICATIONS

  • photographer

  • poet

  • podcaster

  • fiber artist

  • visual artist

  • zine editor

  • curator

LEARNING GOALS

CONTACT

Portfolio Samples

As a disabled artist, photography is a way to stay connected to others. I made an intentional move three years ago to downtown St.Paul so I could be part of the Lowertown artist community. I also benefited from moving to the city because of the convenience of walking distance and the many modes of transportation options to choose from. As a person with a disability I was too isolated in the smaller town I moved from. I did not have reasonable access to life and opportunities outside my apartment when living there.

Yes, you can say I’m a person with a disability. But what if the society we lived in was very accommodating to people like me, would we really be disabled or would we have the same opportunities as everyone else? Is it our physical body that limits us? or is it society? Over one billion people, or 15% of the world's population, experience some form of disability yet the world doesn’t acknowledge our presence and needs for accessibility.

I saw that my body could only “sort of” handle going to the protests because it would wipe me out for days or weeks. I had to wear a back brace and ankle brace. I made sure to pack extra ibuprofen and muscle relaxers, plenty of water or electrolyte drinks just to be able to go. Another thing I would do was take Epsom salts baths before and after events so my muscles wouldn’t be so tense. By doing these things, and packing these things in my camera bag, I was able to go and take photographs and not injure myself. I also made sure to have back up ways to get home, whether it be bus fair, a ride from friends, or a Lyft account.

I’m finding now that I cannot go out during the summer months and I’m even starting to have problems with winter. Because of that I’m in the process of getting an electric wheelchair through my CADI Waiver. That way I can still live an active connected life and I can still be a part of my community and still be a photographer/activist. Having the accommodation of a wheelchair will help me conserve my energy and help me just get around. It will be another adventure for me being someone who is trying to navigate protests and still capture photographs in a wheelchair when not used to using one. I can imagine being someone who can still walk who needs sometimes a wheelchair (ambulatory wheelchair user) will be a learning curve. I will have to deal with people judging my use of a wheelchair when I can still walk at times.

My camera gave me the opportunity to step out into my community and meet people, fellow photographers, activists, community leaders. The energy I had felt at being in a sea of people fighting for humanity gave me strength that wasn’t physical, the energy helped me know I’m not alone and in my time of need people will stand with me. Having a mobility device will help me continue to do this.

My photos for this exhibition are chosen from three years of photographing different protests, rallies and marches. They are a good mixture of many different causes but all boiling down to human rights and dignity. Some of the events were… Justice for Philando, Mni Wiconi Water Is Life, The Women’s March, Fighting for DACA, Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW), Dump Trump, People’s Rally for Justice, No to the Anti Protest Bill, Standing With Standing Rock Solidarity Rally, Not Your Mascot, March For Our Lives, MN loves Ilhan.