A.K. Burns

A.K. Burns

Fellow: Awarded 2021
Field of Study: Fine Arts

Competition: US & Canada

A.K. Burns is an interdisciplinary artist and educator based in New York. Using video, installation, sculpture, drawing, and collaboration, Burns explores systems of value and the body as a contentious domain wherein socio-political issues are negotiated. Burns has exhibited internationally with works acquired by public collections including the Museum of Modern Art, NY. A frequent collaborator, Burns was a co-founder of Working Artists in the Greater Economy, an advocacy organization focused on sustainable economic practices between artist and arts institutions. Since 2012, Burns has developed Negative Space, a cycle of four multi-channel video installations. Taking science fiction as a point of departure, Negative Space raises questions about the allocation of resources, environmental fragility, marginalized bodies, and their relationship to place. The cycle debuts with A Smeary Spot (2015), supported by a 2015 Creative Capital Visual Arts Award. From 2016–17, Burns was a fellow at Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies at Harvard University and Artist-in-Residence at the New Museum where the second work, Living Room (2017), was exhibited. The third work in the series, Leave No Trace (2019), was produced with EMPAC at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY. A.K. Burns is currently a Distinguished Lecturer at Hunter College, Department of Art & Art History.

Photo Credit: Chris Austin

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