BIO

Of Ecuadorian and Chinese descent, Marisa Jahn is an artist whose work explores, constructs, and intervenes natural and social systems. Ranging in practice from deeply personal to highly participatory, her work often relies on the collaborative authorship and distributive intelligence of surrounding people and situations. She writes, “I am interested in the way that collective authorship shifts the production and interpretation of art towards an appreciation of process, context, and re-invention.”

Her work has been presented at the MIT Museum; ICA Philadelphia; ISEA/Zero One; Eyebeam; Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, the Asian Art Museum, etc. Jahn received a BA from UC Berkeley (2000), a MS from MIT’s Department of Architecture (2008), and has received awards and recognition from Franklin Furnace, UNESCO, CEC Artslink. In 2009 she was an artist-in-residence at MIT’s Media Lab, an artist teacher with Center for Urban Pedagogy, and curator-in-residence at the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts.

From 2000-2009, Jahn co-directed “Pond: art, activism, & ideas,” a gallery-based non-profit organization dedicated to experimental art. In 2009, with Stephanie Rothenberg and Rachel McIntire, she co-founded REV- (www.rev-it.org), a non-profit organization dedicated to furthering socially-engaged art, design, and pedagogy. Jahn is the co-editor of ‘Where We Are Now’ (www.wherewearenow.org), an online journal and forum focused on art and politics in New York City. She also is the editor of two books. A meditation on the anticipatory and improvisatorial nature of recipes, ‘Recipes for an Encounter’ (published by Western Front, 2009 with co-editors Berin Golonu and Candice Hopkins) draws examples from diagrams, schematics, lists, and propositions from the fields of art, architecture, and ethnography. ‘Byproduct: On the Excess of Embedded Art Practices’ (YYZ Books, 2010) is a book that investigates artistic practices that embed themselves within other non-artworld institutions and engage their contexts to itself produce the work.

Jahn’s work has been featured in international media including Art in America, LA Times, Frieze, Punk Planet, San Francisco Chronicle, Make Magazine, Metropolis, the Discovery Channel, NPR, and Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

As an art educator working with underrepresented youth since 1998, Jahn has partnered with and built award-winning education programs with organizations such as BreakArts (US/Honduras), Moks(Estonia), Zero One (San Jose), NEXMAP (SF), Meridian Gallery Teen Internship Program (SF), and was recognized by UNESCO in 2006 as a leading art educator. Jahn is based in New York City where she works with various art and social justice organizations including Reverend Billy & The Church of life After Shopping and advocacy organizations such as I-Witness Video, NYC Park Advocates, and Street Vendor Project. She is the current Director of Architecture at Art Omi (artomi.org).

www.marisajahn.com. www.rev-it.org