| STATEMENT
My work hijacks icons of high and low culture to generate meaning anew. I
make art based on the freebies offered by telecommunications companies, the timing
of apple harvests, the traffic patterns of soccer moms, and the ineffable Santa
Claus
logic that prompts terror.
My work depends on these contingencies; to understand, I slip and slink into
new
surrounds. I package the sacrosanct; I embrace the bastard.
BIO
Of Ecuadorian and Chinese descent, Marisa Jahn is an artist,
writer, and community organizer who believes that bridging culture and
grassroots politics brings about innovative forms of social change.
Marisa is the co-editor of Recipes for an Encounter, co-edited
by Berin Golonu and Candice Hopkins and most recently edited Byproduct:
On the Excess of Embedded Art Practices, a book that "investigates art practices
that embed themselves within other non-artworld institutions (the government,
industries, electoral politics), using the language and logic of their host to
produce the artwork—or byproducts of the system."
Marisa’s work has been presented in public spaces in the US, Canada, Tajikistan,
Kyrgyzstan, Estonia, Honduras, and Turkey and in venues such as the MIT Museum,
ICA Philadelphia, The New Museum (New York), ISEA/Zero One, Eyebeam (NYC), the
National Fine Art Museum of Taiwan, and in San Francisco at Yerba Buena Center
for the
Arts,
the
San Francisco
Asian Art Museum, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
In 2009 and 2010, Marisa was an artist-in-residence at MIT’s Media Lab, an artist
teacher with Center for Urban Pedagogy, and designer-in-residence at Street Vendor
Project, an organization that advances an agenda of economic opportunity, social
justice, and civil rights for street vendors in New York City. As an art educator
working with underrepresented youth since 1998, Jahn has partnered with and built
award-winning education programs with organizations worldwide and was recognized
by UNESCO in 2006 as a leading art educator.
From 2000-2009, Marisa and Steve Shada co-directed “Pond:
art, activism, & ideas,” a
gallery-based non-profit organization dedicated to experimental art. In 2010,
Marisa, with Stephanie Rothenberg and Rachel McIntire, co-founded
REV-, a non-profit organization dedicated to furthering socially
engaged art, design, and pedagogy. Marisa is the Creative Director of Newsmotion.org, an innovative global news platform that produces original multimedia content, broadcasts independent voices, and promotes digital media literacy. Marisa is also the Creative and Executive
of People’s Production House, a journalism training and production institute that works with students, immigrants, and working families to produce ground-breaking news critical to a vibrant democracy.
Marisa studied at UC Berkeley Massachusetts Institute of Technology
(MIT). Her work as an artist and activist has been featured in
international media including Art in America, Los Angeles Times,
Frieze, Punk Planet, Clamor Magazine, The New York Times, San
Francisco Chronicle, Make Magazine, Metropolis, the Discovery
Channel, The Wall Street Journal, and Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
www.peoplesproductionhouse.org | www.marisajahn.com | www.rev-it.org | www.newsmotion.org
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