Julia Christensen

Art Practice

Julia Christensen's art practice spans photography, video, sound, installation, sculpture, and performance. Christensen's projects explore the intersections of technology, consumerism, landscape, and history. Her work has been exhibited internationally in solo and group exhibitions at venues such as Walker Art Center (Minneapolis, MN), Eyebeam (New York, NY), Ronald Feldman Gallery (New York, NY), Carnegie Museum of Fine Arts (Pittsburgh, PA), 21C Museum/Hotel (Louisville, KY), Austrian Cultural Forum (New York, NY), and the Museum of Contemporary Art (Cleveland, OH). Her work has been shown internationally in France, Greece, Croatia, Finland, and beyond. Christensen is a recipient of a Creative Capital Fellowship in Emerging Fields (2013) for her project, Upgrade Available, a series of art pieces and writings about our complicated relationships with obsolete electronics ("e-waste") and recordable media. Other awards include the Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award (2015), a MacDowell Fellowship (2015), New York State Council on the Arts Grant (2007), and commissions from Turbulence (2007) and New and Performing Arts Inc. (2007). Her video installation work has been supported by artist residencies at the MacDowell Colony, Experimental Television Center, and the Wexner Center for the Arts Film/Video Studio.

Writing

Julia Christensen is the author of Big Box Reuse, published by MIT Press is 2008. This book is a culmination of her multi-year art project documenting the civic reuse of abandoned “big box” stores in the United States. The book presents case studies, through photography and writing by Christensen, of museums, schools, churches and more in renovated Walmart and Kmart buildings. Big Box Reuse was met with wide acclaim, and was reviewed and featured in the New York Review of Books, New York Magazine, Washington Post, New York Times, New York Times Magazine, San Francisco Chronicle, Cleveland Plain Dealer, among other publications. Amazon.com named it one of the Top 10 Art Books of 2008; it won “Best of Category,” General Trade Illustrated Books in the 2009 New England Book Show (sponsored by Bookbuilders of Boston); it was selected as a winner in the Trade Illustrated Category and the Jackets and Covers Category, 2009 Association of American University Presses (AAUP) Book, Journal, and Jacket Show.

Christensen’s writing has also appeared in Slate, Print, Orion, and Cabinet magazines.