Sculptural art
Site-specific and integrated art
Live performance, including puppetry, theater, dance, music, and spoken word poetry, etc.
Pittsburgh Creative Corps Artist Directory
Heidi Wiren Kebe
HWK Art & Design
Primary Discipline
Artistic Practice
Fabrication, including wood, metal, glass
Site-specificity determines materials used
DOWNRIVER, 2020, film, Director of Photography: Benjamin Handler
Mos’hanna’unk : Crossing Elk River Place, 2021, film, Director of Photography: Remington Daron
SWITCH SIGNAL, 2021, film, Director of Photography: Trey Duplain
HERE WE ARE, 2019, film
Noli me tangere (touch me not) PART II, 2016, film
About the Artist
Heidi Wiren Kebe is a filmmaker, sculptor, designer, and performance artist from the Great Plains. Her work is concerned with the portrayal, oppression and subversive existence of women in America today. As a white woman raised by a lesbian in Nebraska, she feels obligated to confront racial and misogynistic injustice and her escape from it, into the prairie. She sees her body as an object of power and vulnerability and she sees Nature and its processes the same way. Together these inspire a practice that illuminates the overlooked and forgotten. Whether creating laborious action or still objects, she blurs the line between public and private; deconstructing notions of gender, race and corporeality through sculpture, photographs, moving image, new media, and performance.
My work has exhibited throughout the United States and internationally, including Grace Exhibition Space and Panoply Performance Laboratory (Brooklyn, NY), Vox Populi (Philadelphia, PA), Painted Bride Art Center (Philadelphia, PA), Wassaic Project (Wassaic, NY), Bemis Center for Contemporary Art (Omaha, NE), The Banff Centre (Banff, Canada), DFRL8R Performance Art Gallery (Chicago, IL), Arts + Literature Laboratory (Madison, WI), and LA VILLE EN MOUV’MENT (Dakar, Senegal). I have been an invited visiting artist at Concordia University, Iowa State University, Lafayette College, Carnegie Mellon University Qatar, and Grinnell College. I have been an artist-in-residence at Elsewhere Collaborative, Art Farm, Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, Grin City Collective, High Concept Labs, Kelly Strayhorn Theater, Lynden Sculpture Garden, and Stanley Museum of Art. I was also recently a Max Kade Fellow at Lafayette College.
My work has been made possible by the MAP Fund, The Frank-Ratchye STUDIO for Creative Inquiry at Carnegie Mellon University, USArtists International, Iowa Arts Council, National Performance Network, Karl Stirner Arts Trail, and Shiftworks: Community + Public Arts.
I am a co-founder of the Propelled Animals, a transdisciplinary arts and social justice collective.
I am an Associate Creative Director at Carnegie Mellon University representing Distinctive Collections, University Archives and Special Collections.
My studio is located in Pittsburgh, PA and Dakar, Senegal.
Photo by Kuldeep Singh
Web
Accreditations, Certifications, and/or Awards
- Max Kade Fellowship at Lafayette College, 2021;
- Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation USArtists International Grant Recipient with the Propelled Animals, 2021;
- Film Premiere of DOWNRIVER, curated by Joyce Tsai, University of Iowa Stanley Museum of Art, Iowa City, IA, 2020;
- MAP Grant Recipient, awarded for the collaborative project SWITCH SIGNAL with the Propelled Animals, 2019;
- FRFAF Grant Recipient from the STUDIO for Creative Inquiry, Carnegie Mellon University, 2019;
- United States Artists (USA) Fellowship Nomination, 2015;
- MFA, Intermedia & Studio Art, University of Iowa, Magna cum laude, 2015;
- MA, Intermedia & Drawing, Studio Art, University of Iowa, 2014;
- BFA, Studio Art, Minor in Graphic Design, Magna cum laude, Concordia University, 2009
Provides Fabrication Services to Other Artists
Yes
Teaching Artist
Yes, all ages
Joined the Directory
March 2022
Related
PROJECT
Pittsburgh Creative Corps
Designed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Pittsburgh Creative Corps initiative engages artists and creative workers to activate the public realm while providing economic opportunity.
“My creative practice, grounded in concept, time, site-specificity, and ephemerality, can be difficult to understand as a Public Art offering. The Pittsburgh Creative Corps lays a foundation, opens a door, and connects artists to communities, organizations, and mutually beneficial relationships that otherwise would not have been.”
Heidi Wiren Kebe
Contact the Artist
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Related
PROJECT
Pittsburgh Creative Corps
Designed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Pittsburgh Creative Corps initiative engages artists and creative workers to activate the public realm while providing economic opportunity.
