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Artist: Jenny Polak |
| Exhibition: Tactical Action |
| Date: April 14 2004 - June 10 2004 |
Curator: Lea Rekow
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Bio:
Artists Statement: I am a multi-disciplinary artist whose work uses architecture and design to draw attention to experiences of discrimination. A Jew from England, my familys migration and survival influences my work. For some time I have been exploring physical, political and personal dimensions of hiding, as parameters of migration and inter-ethnic solidarity.
While on a residency at Sculpture Space, Utica I began to analyze architectural forms for the hiding of fugitives. Offered a 2001 Digital Artist Residency with the Lower East Side Tenement Museum I made HardPlace, a web project in collaboration with web designer Lauren Gill using architectural computer graphics based on sketches by imprisoned immigrants. It explores largely secret sites where immigrants are kept in detention in the US.
My current body of work brings my architectural drawing ideas back to 3-D construction, with objects and installations. In Situ Sanctuary, an installation at Exit Art, was the first iteration of a concept of ironic architectural hiding-places for fugitive immigrants, taking a stand against modern architectures elimination of such potential. At the Carriage House in Islip, LI, I made Safe House, using a previously sealed attic to construct a fiction about the FBIs discovery of a secret hiding-place that was part of a contemporary Underground Railroad for fugitive immigrants.
I have degrees in Architecture from Cambridge University and in Art from St. Martins School of Art, London. In 1989 the Whitechapel Gallery in London awarded me an Artists In East London Schools Residency. In 1990 I came to New York with a Merit Award from the School of Visual Arts to get an MFA, and stayed for a 1993 Fellowship at the Whitney Independent Study Program. I have exhibited widely in the US and UK as well as working with such artists groups as the RepoHistory collective and Resistant Strains. I live in Brooklyn and create promotional materials for architecture firms.
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