Stamps Directory
Stephanie Rowden

Associate Professor, School of Art & Design
Contact
Email: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Office: 2087 AA
Phone: (734) 763-8944
Personal Website
Curriculum Vitae
M.A. (Community Counseling), Eastern Michigan University, 1999 B.A. (Studio Art), Brown University, 1982
Biography
Stephanie Rowden is a sound artist whose work encompasses projects for radio, podcast, installation and participatory public art. Drawn to the magnetic qualities of sound and story, her experimental audio documentaries and essays explore human motivations and inter-relationships.
Recent projects include a series of audio tours — from a curatorial installation and audio essay about the impulse to collect (for the Berman Museum at Ursinus College) to a guided audio walk inspired by a story by Jorge Luis Borges (through the labyrinthine U-M Hatcher Graduate Library.)
Most recently, Rowden’s interest in student-centered civic engagement has sparked the Creative Campus Voting Project, a research initiative she leads with Stamps colleague Hannah Smotrich. Their ongoing project is focused on creative interventions — online, in public spaces, on campus and in the classroom — that support peer-to-peer interactions to enliven college-age voter participation.
Her audio collaborations with writers include a series of radio poems with Jennifer Metsker, an audio postcard with Keith Taylor, and a soundscore for a video dance performance with Anne Carson. Rowden’s audio pieces have been broadcast on WBEZ-Chicago Public Radio, Michigan Radio, PRI’s Studio 360, and BBC-Radio 4’s Shortcuts and featured through the Third Coast International Audio Festival.
She is co-founder of the Radio Campfire community listening event series in Ann Arbor, Ypsilanti and Detroit; and was co-curator of the Sounds of the State series of audio shorts on Michigan Radio.
At Stamps, Rowden has developed a number of sound art, audio documentary and podcast related classes for artists and designers who want to incorporate audio into their creative work. These include community engagement classes in which students collaborate with elders and high school students to generate and record life stories.
Rowden has received grants and fellowships from the U-M Institute for the Humanities, ArtServe Michigan / the Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs, the Mid-Atlantic Arts Alliance / National Endowment for the Arts, ArtMatters, Inc., the University of Michigan Arts of Citizenship program and Artists Space in New York. She has been an artist-in-residence at the MacDowell Colony and the Ragdale Foundation.
Gallery
Click thumbnails to view full size.
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The Reading Room
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The Reading Room
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Among silhouettes, songs and shadows (Saratoga Diary)
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Among silhouettes, songs and shadows (Saratoga Diary)
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Among silhouettes, songs and shadows (Saratoga Diary)
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Among silhouettes, songs and shadows (Saratoga Diary)
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Story Blanket
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Story Blanket
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Night Tables
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Night Tables
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Night Tables
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Night Tables
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Night Tables
In the News
- Stamps Community Honored in North Campus Deans’ MLK Spirit Awards
- Stephanie Rowden and Hannah Smotrich Launch SparkVotes Parties
- Hannah Smotrich and Stephanie Rowden Design Ann Arbor City Clerk’s Satellite Office @ UMMA
- SparkVotes Initiative Clarifies and Celebrates the Voting Process
- Stephanie Rowden: Radio Campfire at UMMA
- Bookmarks Exhibition Featured in Pulp
- An Irresistible Civic Duty: Voting is Sexy 2018
- Bridge Magazine Features Voting is Sexy Course
- Stephanie Rowden: Audio Short Featured at Standout Shorts, Chicago
- Voting is Sexy: New Course Featured
- Stamps Classes Featured in All About Ann Arbor
- Voting is Sexy: Fall 2018 Course Featured
- Radio Campfire at Dreamland Theater
- BBC Radio 4 Features New Radio Poem by Stephanie Rowden and Jennifer Metsker
- BBC Radio 4 Airs New work by Stephanie Rowden & Jennifer Metsker
- Stephanie Rowden and Jennifer Metsker: ‘Too Many Miles’ on BBC Radio
- Stephanie Rowden and Jennifer Metsker Featured on Re:Sound / WBEZ
- Stephanie Rowden & Jennifer Metsker: ShortDocs Finalists
- Stephanie Rowden Featured on Re:sound
- “Utopia Toolbox” Book Launch: April 25
- Stephanie Rowden: Audio Story Featured by Third Coast Audio Festival
- Stephanie Rowden: Jem Cohen Exhibition Conversation
- The Poetry of Places: an Evening of Creative Audio
- A&D Faculty Promotions