Taylor Alaina Liebenstein Smith

Taylor Alaina Liebenstein Smith (b. 1993) is a U.S.-born, French-naturalized visual artist currently based in Oslo, Norway. She understands the climate crisis as a crisis of perception, and thus capacity for affect. With this in mind, she attempts to cultivate attunement and emotional sensitivity to seemingly dead or distant geobiological entities like permafrost or biofilms. To do this, she collaborates with scientists, poets, dancers, architects and other species, deconstructing perceived boundaries between scientific and artistic knowledge. Materially, her practice explores the poetic intersections between analog and biological media, blending bioart with film and video, installation, performance, sound, photography, printmaking and text.

She holds an MFA from the Oslo National Academy of the Arts, an MA in Cultural Mediation from the École du Louvre in Paris and both a BFA in Painting and a BA in Art History from Boston University. Her work has been exhibited in France, Norway, Finland, Germany, Spain, and the U.S, including at the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle in Paris, Atelier Nord in Oslo, and the KulttuuriKauppila Art Centre in Finland. Her works are also included in the French National Collections.

 

Image: A feeling of longing that freezes and thaws. Photo: István Virag