Faculty

Profile

CLARINDA MAC LOW (they/she) was brought up in the NYC avant-garde arts scene in the 1970s and began performing, at the age of 4, with their father Jackson Mac Low and with Meredith Monk.They started out working in dance and molecular biology and now creates participatory events investigating social constructs and corporeal experience. They are also professor in design and technology and a former HIV/AIDS researcher and medical journalist. Mac Low is ED of Culture Push, an experimental organization linking artistic practice and civic engagement, and co-founder of Works on Water, a triennial of water art. Mac Low’s work has appeared in NYC and internationally, and includes: “Sunk Shore,” a speculative tour of the future; “Free the Orphans,” spiritual and intellectual implications of intellectual property in a digital age; "Cyborg Nation," public conversation on the technological body and intimacy; and “The Year of Dance”, a self-ethnography of how unconventional kinship structures form in the NYC dance world. Residencies include MacDowell, Yaddo, and Mount Tremper Arts. Awards include BAX Arts and Artists Award (2004), Foundation for Contemporary Arts grant (2007) and Franklin Furnace grant (2010). Education: BA in Dance and Molecular Biology (Wesleyan University) and MFA in Digital and Interdisciplinary Arts Practice (CCNY-CUNY). From 2022-2024 they were on staff as an embedded artist at Genspace, a community biology laboratory in Brooklyn, through the Creatives Rebuild New York Artist Employment Program.

Degrees Held

BA  Molecular Biology & Biochemistry / Dance

MFA  Digital and Interdisciplinary Art Practice

Professional Affiliation

Executive Director, Culture Push, Inc.

Co-Director, Works on Water

Research Interests

Climate crisis, socially engaged art, social justice, technology and society, biomaterials, sustainability, institution as art practice