Hometown: Brooklyn, NY
Current City: Baltimore, MD
Considers self: an interdisciplinary artist
and: a director/curator
Is also seen as: a political artist and social practitioner
Artist Statement:
My recent work has been focusing on how metaphor is the missing link in the translation of ideas. As an aesthetic interpreter to the heart, I believe metaphor and symbolism can help us better understand our own humanity. As an artist, director and curator, I believe it is my job to interpret and analyze cultural behavior. Through my work, I try to transfer behavior into tangible and digestible emotions that fill space and transform minds, changing the way we render the world around us.
Artist Bio:
Tavia La Follette is a director, curator, deviser, designer and performer/puppeteer.
She is currently an Artist-in-Residence at CREATE Lab. The Community Robotics, Education and Technology Empowerment Lab (CREATE Lab) explores socially meaningful innovation and deployment of robotic technologies. La Follette has been using the tools and data of the Lab to build performance art projects with and to community.
La Follette is also the founder/director of ArtUp, a non-profit Art as Action space. The Sites of Passage (SOP) project is run out of ArtUp. SOP is an Underground Railroad that crosses the border of language. It is a system of symbolic tunnels designed to build global interchanges for the migration of ideas across political and cultural borders. SOP is a metaphorical "dig" between artists around the world who are interested in taking the discussions away from political perspectives to examine them through a global citizens’ lens.
Her work has toured all over the US, Europe, South America, Asia, Africa and the Middle East. La Follette has been the subject of articles such as the Economist, Rolling Stone and the New York Times. Originally from Brooklyn, her work has been seen at Arts at St. Ann’s (St. Ann’s Warehouse), the Tenement Museum, the Williamsburg Historical Society, Brooklyn Children's Museum, and The Cooler. She spent 15 years in Pittsburgh where she founded ArtUp, directed, produced and performed with The Mattress Factory Museum, City of Asylum, The Cultural Trust, Three Rivers Arts Festival, The Carnegie Museum of Art, International Children’s Festival, Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Pittsburgh and Chatham University.
She recently moved to Baltimore to join The Department of Theatre Arts at Towson University. Here, La Follette teaches/mentors graduate students in an innovative MFA program that cultivates self-generative artists through an interdisciplinary, experimental, process-oriented, and collaborative experience. La Follette also has the opportunity to direct undergraduates and teach courses like Theatre for Social Change, Ensemble Theatre Laboratory and Community Outreach in Theatre.
Current City: Baltimore, MD
Considers self: an interdisciplinary artist
and: a director/curator
Is also seen as: a political artist and social practitioner
Artist Statement:
My recent work has been focusing on how metaphor is the missing link in the translation of ideas. As an aesthetic interpreter to the heart, I believe metaphor and symbolism can help us better understand our own humanity. As an artist, director and curator, I believe it is my job to interpret and analyze cultural behavior. Through my work, I try to transfer behavior into tangible and digestible emotions that fill space and transform minds, changing the way we render the world around us.
Artist Bio:
Tavia La Follette is a director, curator, deviser, designer and performer/puppeteer.
She is currently an Artist-in-Residence at CREATE Lab. The Community Robotics, Education and Technology Empowerment Lab (CREATE Lab) explores socially meaningful innovation and deployment of robotic technologies. La Follette has been using the tools and data of the Lab to build performance art projects with and to community.
La Follette is also the founder/director of ArtUp, a non-profit Art as Action space. The Sites of Passage (SOP) project is run out of ArtUp. SOP is an Underground Railroad that crosses the border of language. It is a system of symbolic tunnels designed to build global interchanges for the migration of ideas across political and cultural borders. SOP is a metaphorical "dig" between artists around the world who are interested in taking the discussions away from political perspectives to examine them through a global citizens’ lens.
Her work has toured all over the US, Europe, South America, Asia, Africa and the Middle East. La Follette has been the subject of articles such as the Economist, Rolling Stone and the New York Times. Originally from Brooklyn, her work has been seen at Arts at St. Ann’s (St. Ann’s Warehouse), the Tenement Museum, the Williamsburg Historical Society, Brooklyn Children's Museum, and The Cooler. She spent 15 years in Pittsburgh where she founded ArtUp, directed, produced and performed with The Mattress Factory Museum, City of Asylum, The Cultural Trust, Three Rivers Arts Festival, The Carnegie Museum of Art, International Children’s Festival, Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Pittsburgh and Chatham University.
She recently moved to Baltimore to join The Department of Theatre Arts at Towson University. Here, La Follette teaches/mentors graduate students in an innovative MFA program that cultivates self-generative artists through an interdisciplinary, experimental, process-oriented, and collaborative experience. La Follette also has the opportunity to direct undergraduates and teach courses like Theatre for Social Change, Ensemble Theatre Laboratory and Community Outreach in Theatre.