CARVING DEFIANCE is a documentary about artistic ambition, the struggle for identity and the price one pays to determine their own destiny.

Her correspondences and diaries —together with surviving sculptures, archival photos and footage, and historical records— allow us to connect with her —not simply as a historical figure being rediscovered a century later, but as a woman wrestling with poverty, desire, physical challenges, and her relationships in her own time and in her own words.

Her journey takes us from Rhode Island to New York and to the salons of Jazz Age Paris, and eventually to the historically Black colleges of Atlanta.

Through Prophet’s life, CARVING DEFIANCE explores larger questions that remain with us today:

• Who gets to become an artist?

• Who gets to be remembered?

• Who gets written into history?

• And what happens when an artist refuses to accept the identity and destiny that society has assigned her?

WHY NANCY ELIZABETH PROPHET — AND WHY NOW

Nancy Elizabeth Prophet’s place in American art history is finally being reconsidered.

More than a century after she began her career, museums have rediscovered her surviving work and participated in this film.

RHODE ISLAND SCHOOL OF DESIGN MUSEUM

Spring 2024

BROOKLYN MUSEUM

Sackler Center for Feminist Art

Summer 2025

SPELMAN MUSEUM OF FINE ART

Fall 2025

‍ ‍CARVING DEFIANCE will carry on that rediscovery through the intimacy and reach of documentary film.

This is not simply the recovery of a forgotten biography. It is the story of one artist’s fight to define herself —collective resistance she sparked that set American artists free.

DISTRIBUTION GOALS The finished documentary is intended for broad public audiences, including film festivals, streaming platforms, cultural and educational institutions, museums, public-media audiences and other distribution opportunities.

ExistEnt Media Arts is a 501(c)3 non-profit company.

All your gifts are tax-deductible.
info@ProphetCarvingDefiance.org