WILLIE NORRIS WORKSHOP is words by Willie Norris.

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Since 2016, WNWS has released word-based work across formats including clothing, printed matter, artworks, objects, experiences, and other projects.

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WNWS has worked with a wide and varied roster of collaborators across fashion, luggage, sports, beauty, cultural institutions, nightlife and performance contexts, and mutual aid initiatives.

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Past and present collaborators include Away, Dieux, Helmut Lang, Gotham FC, Performance Space New York, Brooklyn Liberation, Planned Parenthood, Animal Cycling, Doll Invasion, LEAK, and MoMA PS1.

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Since 2018, independent and collaborative projects developed through WNWS have raised and redirected over $100K to a variety of causes — whether through local mutual aid efforts, such as a fundraiser t-shirt created in collaboration with Legends of Drag that generated over $5K for medical care for drag icon Joan Jett Blakk, or through partner initiatives, including Dieux donating over $40K from the sales of the Dieux × WNWS Eyes Marks to G.L.I.T.S. A charitable or redistributive component is a consistent condition of collaborative and corporate projects developed through WNWS.

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Though WNWS, Willie hopes to offer everyday ways and salves, both subtle and strong, of way-finding and provisional clarity through sustained engagement with themes of queerness, play, responsibility, yearning, dread, and intimacy.

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References and eternal inspiration for the work include Gran Fury, ACT UP, Pippa Gardner, David Robilliard, QZAP, STH, Jenny Holzer, Queer Happened Here, Mark Pauline and RE/Search, Thierry Mugler, Leigh Bowery, Wild Things by Jack Halberstam, Miguel Andover, CAConrad, Internet review and commenting culture, and termites.

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Described by The New York Times in their 2021 profile as “a master of bringing together,” Willie’s work for WNWS collectively embodies a direct, poetic, and communal voice grounded in a queer and definitively DIY spirit. Willie’s work for WNWS is included in the permanent collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum.

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