Stamps Directory
Heidi Kumao

Professor, School of Art & Design
Contact
Email: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Office: 2086 AA
Phone: (734) 763-0183
Personal Website
Curriculum Vitae
M.F.A., School of the Art Institute of Chicago, 1991
B.S. (Chemistry), University of California-Davis, 1988
B.A. (Art Studio), University of California-Davis, 1988
Biography
Generating artistic spectacle through the intersection of cinema, sculpture, theater and technology, Heidi Kumao reframes ordinary gestures to explore their psychological underside. Her interests have manifested a wide range of hybrid art forms including: a game interface which empowers users to hack live CNN broadcasts, provocative electronic women’s clothing, electromechanical girl’s legs that “misbehave,” surreal stop motion animations, narrative video sculptures, short experimental films and “cinema machines,” sabotaged household objects outfitted with hand made projectors.
She has exhibited her work in solo and group exhibitions in the USA, Brazil, Argentina, Spain, Canada and China including solo shows at: the Museu da Imagem e do Som (São Paulo), Museu de Arte Moderne (Buenos Aires), Fundació Joan Miró in Barcelona, Centro Cultural Light (Rio de Janeiro), Center for the Arts, Yerba Buena Gardens (San Francisco), Arizona State University Art Museum, Visual Studies Workshop (Rochester), Ceres Gallery (NYC), Three Rivers Art Gallery (Pittsburgh), and Art in General in New York City, among many others. “Hidden Mechanisms,” a solo show of her “cinema machines” toured for a couple of years to Brazil, Argentina, and the U.S.
Group show venues include: the Museum of Fine Arts, Florida State University, Wing Luke Asian Art Museum (Seattle), and Usina do Gasômetro Cultural Center (Porto Alegre, Brazil), San Jose Museum of Art, National Academy Museum (New York City), El Museo Cultural de Santa Fe (NM), Museo Universtario Arte Contemporáneo (Mexico City) and Wing Luke Asian Art Museum (Seattle) among others.
She has received numerous national fellowships, grants, residencies and awards including: a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Creative Capital Grant in Emerging Fields/Robotics, and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York Foundation for the Arts, Art Matters, The American Association of University Women, and Carnegie Mellon University’s Studio for Creative Inquiry. Her films have been screened in festivals nationally and internationally in the Black Maria Film Festival (Jury’s Choice Award – 1st Prize), Seoul International Extreme-Short Image & Film Festival (Best Experimental/Documentary Award), Videoholica International Video Art Festival in Bulgaria (Bronze Videoholica Award), Rencontres Internationales Sciences & Cinemas, Marseille, and SIMULTAN Festival in Romania.
She has been in residence at The MacDowell Colony, Yaddo Art Colony, Jentel Artist Residency Program, the Arctic Circle Residency, Marie Walsh Sharpe Art Foundation, Light Work, and Sculpture Space.
Her work is in the collections of the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Arizona State University Art Museum, the Exploratorium, and numerous private collections and has been reviewed in Artforum, Art Papers, Sculpture Magazine, and Afterimage.
Prior to arriving at the University of Michigan, Kumao taught media studies and photography at Syracuse University and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and intermedia classes at RISD and City College in New York City. She is a professor at the Stamps School of Art & Design at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA.
Gallery
Click thumbnails to view full size.
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Egress, 2014
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Egress, 2014
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Egress, 2014
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Installation view of solo exhibition, “Surviving Confinement: Video Sculpture”
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Swallowed Whole, 2014
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Swallowed Whole, 2014
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Transplant, 2010
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Transplant, 2010
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Tether, 2010
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Tether, 2010
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Correspondence, 2008
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Correspondence, 2008
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Self-portrait with Monkey (Frida), 2011
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Easter Bunny Basket Case, 2011
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Translator, 2008
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Protest, 2004-05
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Resist, 2002-04 (from Misbehaving: Performative Media Machines Act Out)
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Audio-Activated Bra, (from Wired Wear: Mediating Everyday Performances)
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Audio-Activated Bra, (from Wired Wear: Mediating Everyday Performances)
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Audio-Activated Dress, (from Wired Wear: Mediating Everyday Performances)
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Audio-Activated Dress, (from Wired Wear: Mediating Everyday Performances)
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Wired Wear: Mediating Everyday Performances, installation view, 2005
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CNNplusplus, 2006, interactive news broadcast
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CNNplusplus, 2006, interactive news broadcast
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CNNplusplus, 2006, interactive news broadcast
In the News
- Real and Imagined: Fabric Works and Video Animations by Heidi Kumao
- Heidi Kumao: New Quarantine Animation
- Gender, Bodies, and Machines: Susan Steinberg and Heidi Kumao
- Heidi Kumao Named Faculty Fellow at Institute for the Humanities
- Bookmarks Exhibition Featured in Pulp
- The Heart of the Story: Narrative Forms at Stamps
- Stamps Students Animate for 56th Ann Arbor Film Festival
- Heidi Kumao Exhibits in California
- Heidi Kumao Exhibits in ArtScience Museum, Singapore
- Heidi Kumao: Work Featured at Ann Arbor Art Center Exhibition
- Heidi Kumao Solo Exhibition in Lane Hall Gallery
- Heidi Kumao: Film Screenings & Recent Awards
- Heidi Kumao: Upcoming Film Screenings
- Heidi Kumao Interviewed
- Heidi Kumao’s Film Screened, Awarded
- Heidi Kumao Exhibits in Australia
- Heidi Kumao’s Film Screens in NYC
- Heidi Kumao, Matt Kenyon Exhibit in Barcelona
- Heidi Kumao’s Film Featured in “Doctober” Film Festival
- Heidi Kumao: Film Screens in Toronto
- Heidi Kumao: Filmfest Dresden, Montreal International Animation Festival
- Heidi Kumao Exhibits in Korea
- Heidi Kumao’s Work in Ann Arbor Film Festival
- Presentation - Displacements: Stamps Faculty in Beijing
- Heidi Kumao’s Film Screens in Atlanta & Vienna
- Heidi Kumao: 1st Prize, Black Maria Film Festival
- Heidi Kumao’s Film Screens in Marseille
- Heidi Kumao: Afterimage
- Heidi Kumao Exhibits & Lectures at Dlectricity
- Heidi Kumao Exhibits in NYC