Marina G. Zurkow

Media and participatory practice artist Marina Zurkow connects people to nature-culture tensions and environmental messes, offering humor and new ways of knowing, connecting, and feeling. 

Her research has concentrated on “wicked problems” like invasive species, superfund sites, and petroleum interdependence as well as the emotional sides of climate chaos and changing oceans. She has used life science, bio materials, animation, dinners, and software technologies to foster intimate connections between people and non-human agents. Her work spans gallery installations and unconventional public participatory projects. Collaborative initiatives include Climoji, Dear Climate, More&More Unlimited, and Floating Studio for Dark Ecologies. 

Zurkow's recent solo exhibitions include bitforms gallery, New York and Borusan Contemporary, Istanbul; her work has been featured at Storm King Art Center, New York; 21C Museum, Louisville; the 7th Moscow Biennale; FACT, Liverpool; Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington D.C.; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; National Museum for Women in the Arts, Washington D.C.; 01SJ Biennial, San Jose; Sundance Film Festival, Utah; and the Seoul Media City Biennial, Korea, among others. Her public art engagements have been supported by Creative Time, New York; LACE, Los Angeles; Montclair Art Museum, New Jersey; The New Museum’s Ideas City, New York; Northern Lights.mn, Minneapolis; The Artist’s Institute, New York; 01SJ Biennial, San Jose, California; Rice University, Houston; Boston University; University of Minnesota, Minneapolis; and Baruch College, New York.

Zurkow is a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellow. She has also been granted awards from the New York Foundation for the Arts, New York State Council for the Arts, the Rockefeller Foundation, and Creative Capital. She is represented by bitforms gallery.  She also a teaching fellow and MFA candidate at the Center for the Advancement of Public Action, Bennington College.

At ITP Zurkow will be mentoring students, offering systems thinking workshops, and contributing to thinking (and doing things) about ITP, technology, and sustainability.