Education
2010                   MFA, Integrated Media Arts, Hunter College, New York, NY
1999                   B.A., Film and Electronic Arts, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY

Selected Group Exhibitions
2011                   Bushwick Open Studios, Brooklyn, NY
2010                   Common Ground, Arts@Renaissance, Brooklyn, NY
2010                   NorthBrooklyn, Arts@Renaissance, Brooklyn, NY
2010                   Greenpoint Open Studios, Brooklyn, NY
2009                   GOS, Brooklyn Artillery, Brooklyn, NY
2009                   MetroPoles: Art in Action, New York, NY
2008                   Emergence: Governors Island, NY
2008                   Rejected Letters, Online Exhibition
2008                   Intervene! Interrupt! Rethinking Art as Social Practice, UC Santa Cruz
2008                   IMA*TERIAL, Hunter College, New York, NY
2007                   UHP SIDEWALK, Union Docs, Brooklyn, NY
2007                   Electronic Social Club, Hunter College, NY
2007                   See Something/ Say Something, Hunter College, NY
2006                   Your Space, Phillips De Pury Gallery, New York, NY
2004                   In the Woods, The Dabora Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
1999                   Transmissio, The Chocolate Factory, Red Hook, NY
1998                   Down the Tubes', The Chocolate Factory, Red Hook, NY

Selected Screenings
2011                   The Red Hook Film Festival, Brooklyn, NY
2010                   The Red Hook Film Festival, Brooklyn, NY
2010                   Arts@Renaissance, Brooklyn, NY
2008                   Where the Truth Lies: Engineering Consent in the 21st Century CUNY Graduate Center, New York, NY
2007                   New York/Avignon Film Festival, New York, NY
2006                   Semiennial Screening Series, Monkey Town, Brooklyn, NY
2004          .........Collective Unconscious, New York, NY
2003                   Spring VJ Series, Remote, New York, NY
2001                   Circus Boheme, Bactun, New York, NY
2000                   Soola, A Mystery, Fringe Festival, New York, NY

Commissioned Work
2012                   The Newtown Creek Armada, nbART nbECO 2012 public art project

Funding and Awards
2011                  Art Matters Grant
2011                  Audience Choice Award, Best Experimental Film, The Red Hook Film Festival
2008                  Funding for Emerging Artists with Sustainable Practice
2007                  IFP Finalist, CUNY Hunter College, New York, NY

Curatorial/Exhibition Design
2007/8         .......ESC, Electronic Social Club, CUNY Hunter College, NY
2007                   IMA*terial, CUNY Hunter College, NY

Publications
2011                   The Urban Homesteading Project, Viz. Inter-Arts #2; An Anthology of Trans-Genre Writing, ...........................University.of Southern California Press (2011)

Artist Collectives
2007                   The Urban Homesteading Project - Founding Member
2006                   ESC] The Electronic Social Club - Founding Member
1998                   The Colony - Founding Member

Teaching Positions
2008/ Pres     Visiting Professor, Media and Communications, SUNY Old Westbury  College, Long Island, NY
2007/ Pres     Teaching Artist/Magic Box Productions
2004/5          Professor of Cinema Studies, Yunnan University, Kunming, China

 

ARTIST STATEMENT
For me, making art is a way to scratch away at the surface of the ordinary and investigate the fantastical, spiritual and subversive qualities of everyday objects and human interactions. Working in both fiction and documentary, I use video, sculpture, and public interventions and as tools to critique notions of morality and social convention, and to explore the evolution of the material world and physical space.

My early artworks used 16mm film, handmade lenses and optical printing in a meticulous process of image degradation. As my visual work has become more video-oriented, my techniques often employ the manipulation of images taken from documentary footage, both original and found, to reveal inherent layers of meaning. In A Believer is a Doer, a sculpture and video installation, I explore transcendental religious experiences of Pentecostal Serpent Handlers through repetition of body movements, the expansion of time and removing the individual from the background, in order distill a set of actions.

Found objects and exploration are a primary inspiration for many of my videos. In the experimental documentary video Dream House, I recorded my experiences sifting through a collection of abandoned sentimental objects, after breaking into a derelict house in Brooklyn. The process of actively seeking out human artifacts is a way for me to contemplate themes such as memory and mortality through an experiential lens.

My work with found objects often has an interactive methodology. In the participatory installation 9 to 5 , I created living window dioramas out of discarded cardboard boxes filled with transplanted city weeds in a Chinatown office space, and invited office workers to actively care for the plants. The Urban Homesteading Project, a three-person artist collective that I co-founded, invited passersby to relax in a living room built out of discarded furniture on a city sidewalk in an attempt to foster positive interactions in a multi-ethnic community.

By making work that emphasizes the value of human exchange and the implementation of existing resources, I hope to contribute to a tradition of art making that promotes social engagement through a variety of creative techniques.