Home Artist Programs Supported Artists Shaina Simmons

Shaina Simmons

New Orleans, Louisiana

This film still from Been Black shows two dark-skinned legs running underwater in a pool. A periwinkle blue cloth flows out behind the legs, which angle away from us and to the right.

Been Black

2020

Two women stand back to back in the surf of a beach in this film still from La Diaspora de Twerk. Both have dark-toned skin and long black hair. They wear goldenrod-yellow wrap skirts and white shirts. White dots line their arms, which are bent at the elbow with palms facing up. The water reaches back to a clear blue sky.

La Diaspora de Twerk

2019

A woman wearing white dances on a darkened stage against an indigo-blue curtain. She has dark-toned skin and black hair, and she reaches one arm forward as she looks over that shoulder. An oversized white hand on the curtain is palm up.

Bayou Blues

2017

This film still shows four women gathered closely around a woman who kneels on a black, shadowy stage. All four are barefoot, have dark-toned skin, black hair, and wear all white. They appear to work on the kneeling woman's hair.

AfroFuturo

2017

Artworks shown are selected from works submitted by the artist in their grant or residency application. All works are copyright of the artist or artist’s estate.

About Shaina Simmons

Shaina Simmons is a Black artist with black hair partially braided into cornrows. She looks directly out at us with her hands lifted to the back of her head. She wears an apple-red sleeveless, cowl-neck shirt.

Shaina Simmons is a New Orleans-born actress, interdisciplinary artist, and cultural strategist who practices organic archaeology—excavating personal and ancestral memory to embody collective liberation. Holding two MFAs, Shaina’s projects like Bayou Blues and AfroFuturo channel healing-centered storytelling that affirms Black women’s narratives, reclaims Black beauty, and celebrates cultural memory.

Program Participation

Joan Mitchell Center Residency, 2026

Website / Social Links

“ My work centers on a core belief: the body remembers what oppression suppressed. I use performance, film, ritual, and storytelling as sacred tools to transform intergenerational trauma into cultural healing.”