TIFFANY SHLAIN Download Q & A

IN THE NEWS

About the Artist

Tiffany Shlain is an interdisciplinary artist and was born in San Francisco (1970). She received her BA in interdisciplinary studies from University of California Berkeley where she was valedictorian speaker and studied filmmaking at New York University’s Sight & Sound program. She is a Henry Crown Fellow of the Aspen Institute. Her work has been shown at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the National Women’s History Museum, the Sundance Film Festival, Contemporary Jewish Museum and the US State

Department and embassies globally. Her upcoming exhibit is part of the Getty Museum’s Initiative Pacific Standard Time: Art & Science Collide. Her awards and distinctions include selection by the Albert Einstein Foundation for their Genius100 list, the Neil Postman Award for Career Achievement in Intellectual Activity, and artist residencies at the San Francisco Ferry Building SHACK15 and the Headlands Center for the Arts. She resides in Northern California. She lives in Northern California.

THEMES

Working across film, art, and performance, Shlain's work explores the intersection of feminism, philosophy, technology, neuroscience, and nature. In Human Nature, I look at what happens when we step back to view ourselves within the expansiveness of nature and time through the lens of feminism, neuroscience, ecology, and philosophy. I consider how this scale realignment can change our perspective, offer context, reveal absurdities, and evoke humility, insights, and awe.

I have always been fascinated by the tree ring timelines at the entrance of Muir Woods or any National Park. They illuminate how the trees are a witness to human history. However, I also felt like those timelines tell a colonialist and patriarchal story. The tree rings in Human Nature imagine what alternate histories could be told...