Visiting Professor
High-Low Tech Group
MIT Media Lab
Artist Statement
Diane Willow is a multi-modal artist and creative catalyst. By any medium necessary best describes her process. Working among disciplines and media, seemingly divergent perspectives converge in her practice of art as a socially engaged mode of tuning our attention to ephemeral experiences in everyday places. Her approach repositions a view of contemplation that is generally perceived of as solitary and removed from the flow of life into one that sparks a sense connection and community. She explores the subtle ways that we express empathy with one another, with other life forms, with sensing objects, and with responsive environments. Informed by contemporary views of nature, technology, and community, her fascination with the ways that we develop and transform our sense of place is embodied in her evocative objects, interactive environments and public installations.
Bio
By necessity and passion Diane Willow initiates and participates in interdisciplinary collaboration. She was the catalyst for the Studio Co-Laboratory cross-college, faculty research collaborative at the University of Minnesota, artist in residence at MIT, Osher Fellow at the Exploratorium, guest professor of New Media Art at the Beijing Film Academy, and curator of two studio-based symposia Wonder Women :: Art & Technology 1968-2008 and Digital Dialogues :: Technology and the Hand She enjoys the reciprocity of learning and teaching and is currently Associate Professor in the Experimental and Media Arts area within the Department of Art at the University of Minnesota, with an appointment as artist in residence in Electrical and Computer Engineering, affiliate faculty in Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies and frequent collaborator in the College of Biological Sciences and the School of Architecture.
http://blog.lib.umn.edu/willow/dianewillow/
https://art.umn.edu/people/faculty/profile?UID=willow