Statement
Rowena Harris (they/she) b. Norfolk 1985, is an artist, researcher and educator based in Birmingham, UK. Through moving image and CGI, sculpture and installation they explore bio-cultural and socio-medical dynamics that flow through and affect human bodies differently. In often understated ways, their work communicates through sensory plays, affective tones and reflexive narrative, and where these work as modes to unsettle normative assumptions about thinking and feeling bodies in space and time.
Informed by crip theory and knowledge from their own health experiences with long-covid and ME, their work is increasingly concerned with invisible disability and structures of ableism, as well as vectors of power within societal factors that shape how we feel, understand and make sense of our own bodies. Over recent years they have become invested in how knowledges from disability and crip-ness can inform methods, rhythms, structures and sensibilities for making work. They run the long-covid reading group.
They are currently completing their CHASE (AHRC) funded, practice-based PhD candidate in the Art Department, Goldsmiths College, they hold an MFA also from Goldsmiths (2010), a BA Fine Art from Falmouth University (2008). Recent awards and residencies include the DYCP Arts Council England; SPACE residency (UK); Rupert Residency (LT); Sainsbury’s scholarship The British School at Rome (IT). They have had recent solo exhibitions with Las Palmas (PT); The Gallery Apart, (IT); Object A; Coleman Projects (UK). And group: Trafó House, (HU); Culturegest, Fidelidade Art Porto (PT); ANGL Collective, Copperfield Gallery, Space In Between, Tenderpixel, The Bluecoat, Bloc Projects, Flat Time House (UK), Agnes Varis Centre, (NY, USA); Fondazione Memmo, Artissima, Galleria D’Arte Contemporanea O.Licini, (IT).
CV
Education
2017 – current. AHRC funded PhD candidate, Art Dept, Goldsmith’s College, London UK
2008 – 2010 MFA Fine Art, Goldsmiths College, London, UK
2005 – 2008 BA (hons) Fine Art, University College Falmouth, UK
Awards / residencies
2021 Residency, virtual, SPACE, London
2021 DYCP Arts Council England
2020 Residency, Rupert, LT
2018 Shortlisted for Tenderflix moving image prize
2017 CHASE research funding, practice-based PhD
2014 – 2015 Sainsbury’s Scholarship, (1 year residency) British School at Rome, IT
2013 Atelier Salzamt Residency, Linz, AT
2010 New Contemporaries
Solo exhibitions
2018 Thinking-Feeling, Feeling-Thinking, Las Palmas Project, Lisbon, PT
2017 Soft Boundaries, The Gallery Apart, Rome, IT
2015 The Third Hand Prosthesis, Object A, Manchester, UK
Being both on and within, as I said, The Gallery Apart, Rome, IT
2013 P.A.R.T.S, Coleman Project Space, London, UK
2011 Believing in Things, Van Horbourg Gallery, Basel, CH
Sculptures. Schwartz Gallery Project Space, London, UK
Reading groups / Workshops / Lectures / Artist Talks
2020 (reading session) When the sick rule the post-covid world, Rupert, LT
2020 (workshop) rotating worlds by 90 degrees, thinking horizontal futures, Rupert, LT
2019 (artist talk) New York University, US (visiting London, UK)
2013 (artist talk) Emily Carr University, CA (visiting London, UK)
Teaching
2020 Critical Studies Tutor, MFA Fine Art, Goldsmiths College
2017 – 2019. Critical Studies Tutor, BA Fine Art, Goldsmiths College
2015 – 2020 Visiting Lecturer, BA Fine Art, Art University Bournemouth
2018 Visiting Lecturer / respondent, Central St Martin’s, London, UK
2013 – 2017. Visiting Lecturer, BA Photography, University of Hertfordshire
2013 MFA respondent, Camberwell College of Art, London, UK
Selected group exhibitions
2021 Dimore (Dwelling), The Gallery Apart, Rome, IT
2020 Apophenia, curated by Las Palmas, Culturegest Lisbon & (2021) Fidelidade Art Porto, PT
2019 Collezione Valentini, Galleria D’Arte Contemporanea, Osvaldo Licini, Ascoli Piceno, IT
Emergence, film screening program, Lewisham Art House, London, UK
Some people believe the sun used to be yellow, Trafó, Budapest, HU
2018 Tenderflix, screening at The BFI, London, UK
Soft House, ANGL collective, London, UK
On Reflections, Agnes Varis Centre, New York, UK
Dreamworks, curated by IKO, Limbo, Margate, UK
British Summer Time (BST), Copperfield, London, UK
2017 Super Human Corporation, Space In Between – Online Project, London, UK
Tropical Hangover, Tenderpixel, London, UK
Public View, The Bluecoat, Liverpool, UK
2016 A Symptom of Objects, Supercollider, Blackpool, UK
Film Screening, as part of Persistent States, Saarländische Galerie, Berlin, DE
Say What? ASC Gallery, London, UK
Left Hand to Back of Head, Object Held Against Right Thigh, The Blue Coat, Liverpool, UK
2015 The Place of the Scene, Bloc Projects, Sheffield
Artissima, with The Gallery Apart, Turin, IT
Mostra, The British School at Rome, IT
Conversation Piece, Part 1, Fondazione Memmo, Rome, IT
Artist Screenings, KARST, Plymouth, UK
2014 Image Object, Artuner.com (online) C(h)roma, Indiranagar, Bangalore, IN
Digitalsmigital, Tenderbooks, London, UK
Chronoviser: Archive, South Kiosk, London, UK
Synchronise. Accelerate. Disperse. II, MJ Gallery, Geneva, CH
2013 The Starseed Transmission, Enclave Projects, London, UK
Believing (in) Objects, 134 Middleton Road, London, UK
Hack the Barbican, The Barbican, London, UK
Systems Failure, The Contemporary, London, UK
The Open Cube, The White Cube, London, UK
Up the Trees, Vanhorbourg Gallery, Zurich, CH
MC Live, Enclave Projects, London, UK & Vanhorbourg Gallery, Zurich, CH
2012 MC Launch, X Marks the Bokship, London, UK
Cold Compress, Drei Gallery, Cologne, DE
Fustration. 4 Minits / Flat Time House, London, UK
Today the Collection is, Bethnal Green Library, London, UK
Punctuating (duo show with Vera Kox), La Scatola Gallery, London, UK
No More Icons, Rod Barton Gallery, London, UK
Syndicate 1, Food Face projects, London, UK
2011 Powerless Structures, Schwartz Gallery, London, UK
P 9, Null and Void, London, UK
I Pity Inanimate Objects, Goldstein Galleries, London, UK
In Search of Alchemic Times, (site specific exhibition curated by Cecilia Wee), London, UK
Know How, Campbell Works, London, UK
SAGS. The Woodmill, London, UK
Site of Flesh and Stone, Çağdaş Galeri, Istanbul, TR
On The Brink, SW1 Gallery, London, UK
2010 New Contemporaries, The ICA & The A Foundation, London & Liverpool, UK
To Look is to Labour, Laden Fuer Nichts, Leipzig, Germany
Say What, What Way, Shop@34, London, UK
Pause and Eject, Shoreditch Town Hall & Rag Factory, London, UK
2009 Off Modern, Corsica Studios, London, UK
Projects
2016 Misery Connoisseur Magazine (MC) – founder & editor (curatorial project/artist group)
2014 Tenderbooks – founder, curator, manager (venue for artist publications, research & events)
Publications
2018 On Field Review, (Article) Thinking Football, published by Limbo, Limbo, London, UK
2015 Being both on and within, as I said – artist book published by The Gallery Apart, Rome, IT
2014 Digitalsmigital: The fluidity of formats between publications and the screen,
– Interviewer and essay contribution, published by Tenderbooks, London, UK
2014 Sci-Fi Paganism – creative text contribution, published by Enclave Projects, London, UK
2013 Misery Connoisseur Issue 2, London, UK (editor)
2012 Misery Connoisseur Issue 1, London, UK (editor)
Selected press
ATP – atpdiary.com/rowena-harris-the-gallery-apart-rome/
Cura Magazine online – curamagazine.com/?p=21300
AQNB – aqnb.com/2015/09/24/rowena-harris-being-both-on-and-within-2015-exhibition-photos/
Nuclear Art Zine online – nucleoartzine.com/rowena-harris/
Interview. In conversation with Kirsty Ogg – artuner.com/insight/rowena-harris-conversation-kirsty-ogg/