Christy Gast

Early life and education

Growing up in rural Ohio, Gast’s family worked in agriculture and her mother was a seamstress. Gast received a B.F.A. (Sculpture) and a B.A. (Women’s Studies) from The Ohio State University in 1994. Upon completing her undergraduate studies, Gast moved to Florida to tour with Cloud Seeding Circus of the Performative Object. In 2004 she received an M.F.A. from Columbia University, where she worked with Coco Fusco, Mark Dion and Allan McCollum.

Work

Gast's work stems from extensive research and pilgrimages to places she thinks of as “contested landscapes”. She reworks objects and ecofacts—such as folk textiles or beaver sticks—from those sites into digital, sculptural and performative explorations of placemaking. Blurring the constructs of nature, gender, and species Gast weaves fact and the fantastic into uncanny objects. In 2005 she made her New York debut at MoMA/PS1 Contemporary Art Center and continued to exhibit in various galleries and institutions including Perez Art Museum of Miami, The Bass Museum of Art in Miami, The Fabric Workshop and Museum of Philadelphia, Kadist Foundation Paris, and Centro Cultural Matucana 100 in Santiago, Chile. NAME Publications released a book of Gast’s photography entitled Source in 2012. Gast is associated with the Ensayos program, a research and residency program which directs the insights of artists and scientists to ecological and social issues on the southern tip of Tierra del Fuego. From 2010-2014 she directed the Artists in Residence in Everglades (AIRIE) program, bringing artists to live and work in the Florida Everglades. Gast is represented by Gallery Diet in Miami, Florida.

Selected Exhibitions

2014

2013

2012

2011

2010