Ava Aviva Avnisan
[Image description: A photo of Ava wearing a long black dress and propping one hand on her hip. She has light skin and short, brown hair. She smiles warmly at the camera.]
Ava Aviva Avnisan (she/they) is a multidisciplinary, research-based artist whose work is situated at the intersection of image, text and code. Using an array of emerging technologies including 3D scanning, augmented and virtual reality, and generative AI, Ava works across installation, performance, photography and film to create artworks that seek to subvert dominant narratives through embodied encounters with language.
Ava has presented her work both nationally and internationally. Selected exhibitions, biennials and performances include: solo shows at Pratt Institute, New York, NY (2024) and the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen, Denmark (2016); Invisible Traditions at The FRONT Arte & Cultura in San Diego, CA, as part of San Diego-Tijuana World Design Capital 2024; Inside Practice at the Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago, IL (2020); Refiguring the Future at 205 Hudson Gallery in New York, NY (2019); Between Bodies at The Henry Art Gallery in Seattle, Washington (2018-19); and the Chicago Architecture Biennial (2017). She has been interviewed by BOMB Magazine and her work has been published in Engaging the Margins: Experimental Practices in Interdisciplinary Art (BRILL, 2024); Performance in a Pandemic (Routledge, 2022); INDEX Vol. 6: An Annual Document of Performance Practice (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2017), the Electronic Literature Collection, Volume 3 (2016), and others.
Ava was an Eyebeam Democracy Machine Fellowship finalist in 2024, and a Creative Capital Award finalist in 2016. She is the recipient of a Digital Humanities Summer Fellowship through the Simpson Center for the Humanities, and a Digital Studies Fellowship through Rutgers University—Camden. She holds an M.F.A. in Poetry from Brooklyn College and an M.F.A in Art and Technology Studies from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Ava is an Assistant Professor of Art and Design at San Diego State University with a co-appointment in the school of Journalism and Media Studies.
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