Tiana Birrell to be Featured at TCC Chicago
EH student Tiana Birrell will be featured at the SW Water and Light art show in Chicago, Illinois starting April 27th. Her work will be displayed alongside several other pieces that address nature, environment, history and culture of the Southwestern United States and examine the ways that lack of water and excess of light has shape the Great American Desert.
Tiana comes to the University of Utah Environmental Humanities Program from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where she received an MFA in Photography. Her current work revolves around water issues and the physical impact of data farms, specifically their large consumption of water. In reference to her work Tiana says: “This series seeks to activate the materiality of information and its agency within the landscape and local economies. My research looks at data centers and the copious amount of water that is used to cool the servers as a way to bring a materiality to the interconnected network of signals and communication called the internet.”
In line with Tiana’s own artist statement, the SW Water and Light Event Facebook Page states: “we share a connection to the region as well as an explicit relationship to landscape. And we believe we are more than capable of addressing the cultural and geographic landscape of the American Southwest without resorting to cliché or succumbing to reverential awe.”
The exhibit will be at TCC Chicago until May 6th, so if you’re in the area, check it out!
To see more of Tiana’s work, visit her website: Tianabirrell.com
