Steffani Jemison facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Steffani Jemison
Born	1981 (age 43–44) Berkeley, California, U.S.
Education	Columbia University (BA) School of the Art Institute of Chicago (MFA)
Occupation	Artist, educator
Awards	Herb Alpert Award (2021) Guggenheim Fellowship (2020) Creative Capital Award (2020) Radcliffe Fellowship (2016)

Steffani Jemison (born 1981) is an American artist, writer, and educator. She creates videos and art projects that explore how Black culture, sounds, and everyday practices connect with modern and conceptual art. Her work has been shown in famous museums like the Museum of Modern Art and the Guggenheim Museum. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Early Life and Education

Steffani Jemison was born in 1981 in Berkeley, California. She grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio. When she was a child, she went to summer camp at the Carnegie Museum of Art. Her favorite class there was one where she wrote a story about a piece of art.

She earned a bachelor's degree in comparative literature from Columbia University in 2003. Later, she received a master's degree in fine arts from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2009.

Teaching Career

Steffani Jemison is currently a professor at the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University. She teaches media in the art and design department. Before this, she taught at the Parsons School of Design and the Art Institute of Chicago.

Art Projects and Works

Steffani Jemison has created many important art projects. Some of her major works include Prime (2016), Promise Machine (2015), and Personal (2014). Her 2014 video Personal was shown at the Brooklyn Museum in an exhibition called "Crossing Brooklyn: Art from Bushwick, Bed-Stuy, and Beyond."

Promise Machine

Promise Machine was a special project that combined a reading group with a live performance. People formed a "Utopia Club" and included artists, writers, and book club members. Jemison then created a musical performance using ideas and words from the reading group. She was inspired by how churches create shared experiences through reading. Promise Machine aimed to create a similar feeling in a non-religious setting.

Prime

Her work Prime looks at important texts from history and culture. It explores how privacy and big changes (like revolutions) are connected.

You Completes Me

You Completes Me is a performance art piece. It features a live reading of parts from modern urban fiction stories. At the same time, an old 1927 film called The Scar of Shame plays. This project brings together historical moments with current ones.

Films: Manic Chase and Escaped Lunatic

Jemison's films Manic Chase and Escaped Lunatic were inspired by movies from the early 1900s. She focuses on how the actors move in these films. She is especially interested in the deeper meanings of movement in society and politics.

The Intuitionists

Steffani Jemison also helped organize an art program called "The Intuitionists." She worked with artists Heather Hart and Jina Valentine. In this program, artists created art based on ideas from a paragraph in Colson Whitehead's novel, The Intuitionist. This art was shown at the Drawing Center.

Hillman Photography Initiative

As part of the Hillman Photography Initiative at the Carnegie Museum of Art, Jemison worked with other artists and experts. They created a platform to show the connection between photography and the city of Pittsburgh. Their work highlighted the physical things that make photography possible.

Future Plan and Program

From 2010 to 2011, Jemison worked on a project called Future Plan and Program. Through this project, she asked artists of color to write and publish new literary works. This continued her interest in reading and aimed to make books available to many people. It has published works by artists like Martine Syms and Jina Valentine.

Solo Exhibitions

Steffani Jemison's art has been featured in many solo exhibitions around the world. Some of these include:

• End Over End, JOAN, Los Angeles, 2022.
• Steffani Jemison, Annet Gelink, Amsterdam, 2022.
• Broken Fall, Greene Naftali, New York, 2021.
• End Over End, Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, 2021.
• Steffani Jemison: Sensus Plenior, Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, New York, 2020.
• Steffani Jemison: New Videos, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, 2019.
• Escaped Lunatic, MoMA, New York, 2016.
• Steffani Jemison: Maniac Chase, Escaped Lunatic, and Personal, RISD Museum, Providence, Rhode Island, 2015.
• Museum as Hub: Alpha's Bet Is Not Over Yet, New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, 2011.

Awards and Honors

Steffani Jemison has received many awards and grants for her artistic work. These include the Herb Alpert Award in the Arts (2021), a Guggenheim Fellowship (2020), and a Creative Capital Award (2020). She also received a Radcliffe Fellowship in 2016.

She has also been an artist-in-residence at several places. These include the Studio Museum in Harlem and the Museum of Fine Arts Houston.