Engaging with overlapping practices of visual art, filmmaking, and writing, Glenn “Sonnie” Wooden investigates the experiences of individuals through an ontological-and-ethnographic-like process by investigating environments, food, and bodies within and around issues of class, race, romance, and violence. Sonnie is from Chicago, IL, and now lives and works in Chicago, IL. He received a BA from The University of Iowa (2018) and an MFA from the University of Pennsylvania (2020).

This project photographs families (including my own) in order to consider how a family is either biological or self-selected. Being from the West Side of Chicago, I look at how my family moved from the streets of Chicago into inherited poverty, and what it means for me to be an outcast. To be in and out of a family, due to upward mobility through academia, all the while still staying in place due to the environmental implications. I have spent much of my time examining the tangible and intangible aspects of Black culture. By using my own family, I work to understand the micro implications of being Black as a way to reconsider the macro implications of being Black.