caitlin berrigan
Caitlin Berrigan works at the intersection of performance, edible sculpture, participatory actions and the life sciences to initiate dialogue about biopolitics and culture. Less concerned with visualizing the unseen, she is interested in employing spatial aesthetics to make imperceptible forces an embodied experience. She stages conflict between pleasure and discomfort through intimate, choreographed encounters between the public and sculptural media—provoking multivalent readings and visceral responses. By uncovering layers of ambiguous emotions, she aims to open a space of potential to confront uncertainty within the context of social issues.
Berrigan has presented her work internationally, including at the Whitney Museum, Storefront for Art & Architecture, Hammer Museum, Gallery 400 Chicago, LACMA, Lugar a Dudas Bogotà, and 0047 Gallery Oslo and the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. She has been an invited speaker at the New Museum, Harvard Medical School, and the Max Planck Institute. Berrigan received an Agnes Gund fellowship to attend the Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture (2008) and was an artist in residence at PROGRAM in Berlin (2009) and the Bioarts Initiative at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (2007). She holds a Master’s in visual art from MIT (2009) and a B.A. in art history and production from Hampshire College (2004). Raised in Mendocino, California and schooled in Massachusetts, she has lived in New York City, Paris, Cambridge and Berlin. She currently lives in Cambridge with a studio in the South End of Boston.
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| education |
2009 M.S. Visual Arts Program, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA
Thesis advisors: Krzysztof Wodiczko, Caroline Jones, Stefan Helmreich
Faculty: Ute Meta Bauer, Antoni Muntadas, Joan Jonas
Thesis advisors: Christoph Cox, Baba Hillman, Mariangeles Soto-Diaz
2003 Brown University Paris, France, Exchange at Vincennes-St. Denis Paris VIII| residencies |
2011 Invitational Residency, The Wassaic Project, Wassaic, NY
2010 Vermont Studio Center, Clowes Foundation Fellowship, Johnson, VT
2009 PROGRAM, Berlin, Germany
2008 Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture, Skowhegan, ME
2007 Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Center for Biotechnology & Bioart, Troy, NY
2005 Experimental Television Center, Owego, NY
Talent Campus, 55th annual Berlinale International Film Festival, Berlin, Germany
| grants & awards |
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| 2009 | MISTI Fellowship for travel to Berlin |
| 2008 | Agnes Gund Fellowship, Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture |
| Schlossman Research Fellowship, M.I.T. Architecture Department | |
| Harold & Arlene Schnitzer Prize in the Visual Arts, M.I.T. Council for the Arts & Student Art Association | |
| M.I.T. Council for the Arts Grants for “Life Cycle of a Common Weed” & “Resonance” | |
| 2007 | Collaborative public artwork commission with Beam Camp, Moultonborhough, NH |
| M.I.T. Council for the Arts Grant for “The Knit Virus” | |
| Tuition Fellowship, MIT Architecture Department | |
| 2004 | The Foundation for Psycho-Cultural Research & Hampshire College grant for “La Specola” |
| 1999 -04 |
Johnson Scholarship for Academic Achievement, Hampshire College |
| selected exhibitions & events e - exhibition | s - screening | p - performance | w - event/workshop |
| 2011 | |
| p | Governors Island, “Victory Gardening,” curated by Kleio Projects |
| p | Art in Odd Places, New York City “Adoring Appetite” Collaboration with Anya Liftig (Upcoming) |
| 2010 | |
| e s | LACMA, Los Angeles, “LA Freewaves 20th Anniversary,” video installation, DVD release |
| s | 0047, Oslo, “They go round and round,” curated by Carson Chan |
| e p | MEME Gallery, Cambridge, “Spectrum of Inevitable Violence,” curated by Gavin Kroeber & Rebecca Uchill |
| e | Grim Museum, Berlin, curated by Ina Helen Otzko |
| s | LUGAR a DUDAS, Bogotá, Colombia, curated by Luis Ospina |
| e | Maribel Lopez Gallery, “Avalanche,” group exhibition, Berlin, Germany |
| e | Institute of Contemporary Art, “Exchange,” curated by Lauren Fensterstock, Maine College of Art, Portland, ME |
| p | Queen Elizabeth Theatre, “Culture Shock: Video Interventions,” curated by Vancouver Art Gallery for the Olympics, Vancouver, BC |
| 2009 | |
| e p | Program Gallery, “Herring Under a Fur Coat,” curated by Carson Chan, Berlin, Germany |
| e | Mills Gallery, “And Things of That Nature” Boston, MA |
| p | Scheltema Complex, Leiden, Netherlands, “And the Cow Jumps Over the Moon,” collaboration with Boo Chapple |
| w | Center for Advanced Visual Studies, MIT, Cambridge, MA, “Speaking to the Inside,” Waves & Signs Conference |
| 2008 | |
| w | Whitney Museum of American Art, Initial Public Offerings series, talk & commissioned artwork, New York, NY |
| e | PS 122 Gallery, “The Audacity of Desperation,” New York, NY |
| e p | Gallery 400, “Biological Agents,” 3-person show with Natalie Jeremijenko & Brandon Ballengée, Chicago, IL |
| e | Sea and Space Gallery, “The Audacity of Desperation,” Los Angeles, CA |
| e p | Jamaica Arts Center, “Metro Poles: Art in Action,” collaboration with Tattfoo Tan & Emcee C.M. Master of None, Jamaica, NY |
| e p | Playspace Gallery, California College of the Arts, “Multispecies Salon,” curated by E. Kirksey & M. Johnston, San Francisco, CA |
| 2007 | |
| e | Storefront for Art & Architecture, “Lost and Found City,” New York, NY |
| e p | SIGGRAPH 34th International Conference & Exhibition, San Diego, CA |
| e | Eyebeam Gallery, Bent Festival, New York, NY |
| e | Dumbo Arts Center, Art Under the Bridge Festival, Brooklyn, NY |
| s | Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego Women’s Film Festival, San Diego, CA |
| e s | National Museum of Women in the Arts, 20th Anniversary Festival of Media Arts, Washington, D.C. |
| e | Antwerp Zoo, “Confronting Mortality with Art and Science” conference exhibition & catalogue, Antwerp, Belgium |
| e | Maryland Hall for the Creative Arts, “Catapult,” Annapolis, MD |
| e | Galerie Paris 8, “Regards Intérieurs,” Paris, France |
| 2006 | |
| e p | Visualizing TRANS Conference & Exhibition, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI |
| s | Hammer Museum of Art, 10th Biennial L.A. Freewaves Festival, Los Angeles, CA |
| p | Conflux Festival for Psychogeography, McCaig-Welles Gallery, Brooklyn, NY |
| e | William Paterson University Gallery, “More Than Meets the Eye,” Wayne, NJ |
| e | Secret Project Robot, “Cabin Comforts” group exhibition, Brooklyn, NY |
| e | The Tank, Bent Festival, New York, NY |
| p | Merkin Concert Hall, “Mosheh,” video collaboration for a multimedia opera by Yoav Gal, New York, NY |
| e | Westnorth Studio, “gender-f,” curated by Deb King of Markszine, Baltimore, MD |
| 2005 | |
| s | Anthology Film Archives, NewFilmMakers Series, New York, NY |
| e | Markszine.com online arts magazine commission |
| e s | Women in the Director’s Chair 24th Annual Festival, Chicago, IL |
| e s | New Media Art Festival, Bangkok, Thailand |
| e | Stuttgarter Filmwinter 18th annual New Media Festival, Stuttgart, Germany |
| s | Center for Contemporary Art, program curated by Anne Bray, Tel Aviv, Israel |
| s | Corriente Hipermediatica Experimental Latinoamericana, program curated by Anne Bray, Bueno Aires, Argentina |
| s | Encuentro Internacional de Espacios Independientes, program curated by Anne Bray, Valparaiso, Chile |
| 2004 | |
| s | 404 Electronic Art Festival São Paulo, Brazil |
| e s | Waywood Gallery & Side Cinema, “We Are Transparent” group exhibition, Newcastle, UK |
| s | Redcat Theatre, L.A. Freewaves 9th Biennial Festival, Los Angeles, CA |
| w | The Kitchen, 9th Annual Street Fair, New York, NY |
| e | “Pilot TV” symposium & exhibition, Diamonds & Texas Ballroom, Chicago, IL |
| e | MediaCentre at Le Musée di-visioniste, “VideoChannel: Violence XP” Group Programme |
| e s | Gallery TK, Northampton, MA, solo exhibition: “La Specola: Medical Examination & Archetypes of the Vagina Dentata” |
| e s | Hampshire College Main Gallery & Main Lecture Hall, Amherst, MA, solo exhibiton & screening: “La Specola” | s w | Reproductive Rights 18th Annual Conference, Hampshire College, Amherst, MA |
| 2003 | |
| s | Women in the Director’s Chair, Chicago, IL, “Gorge: Films about Food” curation & screening |
| e | “Rencontres A3” group exhibition with Orlan, Pierre & Gilles, others, Place Saint-Sulpice, Paris, France |
| public lectures |
|
| 2011 | Stanford University Visiting Artist Lecture, invited by Laura Splan |
| 2010 | Cologne Media Arts Academy (KHM), “Living Matter,” Cologne, Germany |
| MIT Media Lab, Upgrade! Artist’s talk, Cambridge, MA | |
| 2009 | PROGRAM, “Unresolved Anxieties & Other Political Tactics,” Berlin, Germany |
| Centre for Interdisciplinary Arts, “Food,” presentation & participatory event with Boo Chapple, Perth, Australia | |
| SymbioticA, University of Western Australia, “Contamination & Incorporation,” Perth, Australia | |
| 2008 | New Museum & Rhizome, New Science panel, “Media art in the age of cloning, transgenics and genomics,” curated by Régine Debatty New York, NY |
| Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, “Improvising Glycoproteins: A case study in artistic virology,” Berlin, Germany | |
| Harvard Medical School, BioArt Seminar Lecture Series, Boston, MA | |
| M.I.T. History, Theory & Criticism, “What Object?” symposium, Cambridge, MA | |
| 2007 | Location One, Dorkbot presentation, New York, NY |
| selected media & press |
|
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0047 Publications: And the Seasons: They Go Round & Round, Carson Chan, et al, 2011 (Exhibitions Catalog) |
| professional experience |
|
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2011-12, Harvard University, Cambridge, Teaching Assistant, Visual & Environmental Studies (Undergrad) |
