PERFORMING OUR FUTURE:
F O R U M
SHANNON SCROFANO
Shannon Scrofano is a Los Angeles-based designer whose work includes interdisciplinary performance, public space, exhibition, curation and conversation projects internationally and throughout the US. She collaborates with communities, organizations and other artists to explore location-based design process and practice.
Her work has been seen at venues including the Berlinale, the National Cultural Center in Kampala, PICA’s TBA, the Getty Villa, REDCAT, El Teatro Público in Havana, Prague Quadrennial, the Mistake Room, the Ostrava Festival, and the Tribeca Film Festival, as well as in city halls, car dealerships, warehouses, desert expanses, under bridges, on rooftops and an elk ranch, and has been supported by organizations including ArtPlace, National Endowment for the Arts, the Mellon Foundation, Creative Capital Map Fund, the Surdna Foundation, TCG’s AHA, and the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs.
She serves as the Director of Design for the Center for Performance and Civic Practice, developing field-building tools and strategies for artists and designers to collaborate cross-sector within communities and organizations to build civic health, equity and capacity. She also serves as Co-Artistic Director of Nuestro Lugar: North Shore, the first major resident-designed, culture-driven, community development project in a rural community on the Salton Sea, in partnership with Kounkuey Design Initiative and Mutuo Architecture, and part of an upcoming exhibition at the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum.
In addition, she is a member of the first arts and capacity-building working group of the Kettering Foundation, focused on improving democratic practices on a national scale and generating new research around the intersections of arts and civic work. She has been a guest/visiting faculty at institutions including Brown University, Duke University, Northwestern, Georgetown, and at festivals and conferences including the Prague Quadrennial, the Portland Institute of Contemporary Art, and the University of Goldsmiths in London. She was recently named to Yerba Buena Center for the Arts’ 2016 YBCA100, an annual list of “the creative minds that are asking the questions and making the provocations that will shape the future of culture.” She teaches design at California Institute of the Arts (CalArts).
Her work has been seen at venues including the Berlinale, the National Cultural Center in Kampala, PICA’s TBA, the Getty Villa, REDCAT, El Teatro Público in Havana, Prague Quadrennial, the Mistake Room, the Ostrava Festival, and the Tribeca Film Festival, as well as in city halls, car dealerships, warehouses, desert expanses, under bridges, on rooftops and an elk ranch, and has been supported by organizations including ArtPlace, National Endowment for the Arts, the Mellon Foundation, Creative Capital Map Fund, the Surdna Foundation, TCG’s AHA, and the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs.
She serves as the Director of Design for the Center for Performance and Civic Practice, developing field-building tools and strategies for artists and designers to collaborate cross-sector within communities and organizations to build civic health, equity and capacity. She also serves as Co-Artistic Director of Nuestro Lugar: North Shore, the first major resident-designed, culture-driven, community development project in a rural community on the Salton Sea, in partnership with Kounkuey Design Initiative and Mutuo Architecture, and part of an upcoming exhibition at the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum.
In addition, she is a member of the first arts and capacity-building working group of the Kettering Foundation, focused on improving democratic practices on a national scale and generating new research around the intersections of arts and civic work. She has been a guest/visiting faculty at institutions including Brown University, Duke University, Northwestern, Georgetown, and at festivals and conferences including the Prague Quadrennial, the Portland Institute of Contemporary Art, and the University of Goldsmiths in London. She was recently named to Yerba Buena Center for the Arts’ 2016 YBCA100, an annual list of “the creative minds that are asking the questions and making the provocations that will shape the future of culture.” She teaches design at California Institute of the Arts (CalArts).