HEIDI WIREN KÉBÉ

About

b. 1986, HK.

Photo courtesy of Porter Loves

I, Heidi Wiren Kébé (Bartlett), am an interdisciplinary performance artist from the Great Plains. My work is concerned with the portrayal, oppression and subversive existence of women in America today. As a white woman raised by a lesbian in Nebraska, I feel obligated to confront racial and misogynistic injustice and my escape from it, into the prairie. I see my body as an object of power and vulnerability and I see Nature and its processes the same way. Together these inspire a practice that illuminates the overlooked and forgotten. Whether creating laborious action or still objects, I blur the line between public and private; deconstructing notions of gender, race and corporeality through sculpture, photographs, moving image, and performance.

My work has exhibited throughout the United States and internationally, including Grace Exhibition Space and Panoply Performance Laboratory (Brooklyn, NY), Vox Populi (Philadelphia, PA), Painted Bride Art Center (Philadelphia, PA), Wassaic Project (Wassaic, NY), Bemis Center for Contemporary Art (Omaha, NE), The Banff Centre (Banff, Canada), DFRL8R Performance Art Gallery (Chicago, IL), Arts + Literature Laboratory (Madison, WI), and LA VILLE EN MOUV’MENT (Dakar, Senegal). I have been an invited visiting artist at Concordia University, Iowa State University, Lafayette College, Carnegie Mellon University Qatar, and Grinnell College. I have been an artist-in-residence at Elsewhere Collaborative, Art Farm, Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, Grin City Collective, High Concept Labs, Kelly Strayhorn Theater, Lynden Sculpture Garden, and Stanley Museum of Art. I was also recently a Max Kade Fellow at Lafayette College.

My work has been made possible by the MAP Fund, The Frank-Ratchye STUDIO for Creative Inquiry at Carnegie Mellon University, USArtists International, Iowa Arts Council, National Performance Network, Karl Stirner Arts Trail, and Shiftworks: Community + Public Arts.

I am a co-founder of the Propelled Animals, a transdisciplinary arts and social justice collective.

I received my BFA in Studio Art from Concordia University as well as an MA and MFA in Intermedia and Sculpture from the University of Iowa.

I am an Associate Creative Director at Carnegie Mellon University representing Distinctive Collections, University Archives and Special Collections.

My studio is located in Pittsburgh, PA and Dakar, Senegal.