Zora J. Murff
Zora J. Murff (born 1987) is an American photographer, curator, and educator. He is currently based in Fayetteville, Arkansas and teaches photography at the University of Arkansas. Murff's work focuses on social and cultural constructs including race and criminality. His series, "Corrections", is a visual exploration of kids in the juvenile criminal justice system in Eastern Iowa. Life and work. Murff was born in 1987 in Des Moines, Iowa, to an African American family. He studied for a BS in Psychology from Iowa State University. Following his graduation in 2010, took a job as a Tracker  for Linn County Juvenile Detention and Diversion Services in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Murff enrolled at the University of Iowa to study photography at the same time. He photographed the children that he worked with, which resulted in "Corrections," his final-year BA project, "about a system that too often fails the disenfranchised youth to whom it has a duty of care." The "Corrections" photo series images were taken from 2013 to 2015. He published the work as a monograph in 2015 with "Aint-Bad Magazine". Murff has continued to create work about incarceration in America. Following his studies at the  University of Iowa, Murff enrolled in the MFA studio art program at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. In April 2018, he launched his thesis exhibition "Re-Making the Mark", a mixture of photography and sculpture focused on the historical impacts of redlining in North Omaha, a Historically African-American neighborhood in Omaha, Nebraska. His second monograph "Lost: Omaha," includes some work from "Re-Making the Mark". Murff began teaching Photography at the University of Arkansas' School of Art in 2018. He is also a co-curator of Strange Fire Artist Collective (formed in 2015) with artists Jess T. Dugan and  Rafael Soldi, and curator Hamidah Glasgow. In 2019, he was artist-in-resident at Light Work in Syracuse, NY. In 2020, Murff was awarded the inaugural Next Step Award from Aperture magazine, Baxter St at the Camera Club of New York, and the 7|G Foundation.