Steve Rowell
Bio
Steve Rowell is a human, artist, and educator who works with photography, moving image, sound, maps, and spatial relations. His research-based practice investigates terrains of perception, nonhuman intelligence, extinction, and technology, exploring the landscape as a site of political imagination. Steve contextualizes the morphology of the built environment with the surrounding medium of Nature, appropriating the methods and tools of the geographer and archaeologist.
He holds an MFA with Distinction from the University of Oxford and a BA in Studio Art from the University of Texas.
Awards and honors that Steve has earned include:
- the McKnight Media Artist Fellowship (Film, 2024)
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the MacDowell Fellowship (2021-22)
- the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship (Film, 2019)
- the Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Grant (2022 and 2025)
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grants from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts (Film, 2016) and Creative Capital (Emerging Fields, 2013)
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artist residencies at the Zentrum für Kunst und Urbanistik, at the Villa Aurora Berlin, and Fogo Island Arts
- visiting fellowships at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, and Newcastle University
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and the Erna Plachte scholarship at the University of Oxford
He has collaborated with SIMPARCH (Chicago, 2003-2009), The Office of Experiments (London, 2009-present), and The Center for Land Use Interpretation (Los Angeles, 2001-2013). Born in Houston, Steve has been based in Los Angeles, Oxford, Berlin, Washington, D.C., and Chicago over the past twenty years. Currently, he lives in Minneapolis, where he works at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design as a researcher and educator.
Steve has taught at numerous institutions including:
- School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC)
- ArtCenter College of Design
- Scripps College
- University of Applied Arts Vienna
- Kansas City Art Institute
- University of Minnesota
He has been lecturer, guest artist, and portfolio committee member at numerous institutions including:
- Northwestern University
- Corcoran College of Art and Design
- Newcastle University
- University College London
- Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich)
- California Institute of the Arts (CalArts)
- Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-arc)
Steve's work (collaborative and solo) has been exhibited internationally at a range of galleries and museums, including:
- New York: The 2006 Whitney Biennial, Apex Art, MoMA PS1, and Storm King
- Washington, D.C.: The Smithsonian American Art Museum
- Marfa: Ballroom Marfa
- Pittsburgh: The Center for PostNatural History
- Milwaukee: The Institute for Visual Art
- Chicago: The Museum of Contemporary Art and The Museum of Contemporary Photography
- San Francisco: Yerba Buena Center for The Arts
- Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions,
- China Art Objects Gallery, and California Museum of Photography UC Riverside
- Istanbul: 3rd Istanbul Design Biennial
- London: The Barbican Art Centre, the Frieze Art Fair, and The Architecture Foundation
- Southampton: The John Hansard Gallery
- Nottingham: Nottingham Contemporary Museum
- Cornwall: Groundwork 2018
- Halle an der Saale: Werkleitz 2010 festival
- Berlin: Haus der Kulturen der Welt, neue Gesellschaft für bildende Kunst, and Deutsche Bank Kunsthall
Filmography:
2024
Lost Prairie Valley (14 min)
Director, camera, writer, editor, sound
2023
DEAD ZONES (17 min)
Director, camera, writer, editor, sound
World art exhibition premire, Insurgent Ecologies group show, Antenna, New Orleans, April-May 2023
2022
MacDowell Trilogy (3 min each): RCNWR, Near Space Environment, Walden; version 2
Director, camera, writer, editor, sound
Permanent collection: MacDowell Foundation, Peterborough
2021
Comfort in Hydrology (13 min)
Director, camera, writer, editor, sound
Midwest Film Festival, 2022, Nominated Best Sound
World Premiere, Overflow group show, Qarma, Minneapolis, 2021
2020
make the world go away, rain, trail of tears (2 min)
Director, camera, writer, editor, sound
2018
Water Castle (20 min)
Director, camera, writer, editor, sound
World Premiere: Art Safiental 2018, Tenna, Switzerland
2017
Humans Lived Here Once (23 min)
Director, camera, writer, editor, sound
World Premiere, MFA thesis exhibition, Oxford University, 2017
2016
Midstream at Twilight (20 min)
Director, camera, writer, editor, sound
Environmental Impact group show, Hofstra University Museum of Art, 2019
European premiere Stormy Weather group show, Museum Arnhem, 2019
NY premiere, Indicators, group show, Storm King Art Center, 2018
MN premiere World of Matter Symposium, University of Minnesota, 2017
World premiere: Petcoke: Dirty Energy exhibition, MOCP, Chicago, 2016
2016
Parallelograms (32 min)
Director, camera, writer, editor, sound
Diagrams of Power, group show, Onomatopee Projects, Eindhoven, 2019
French premiere, Rencontres Internationales Paris/Berlin film festival, 2017
Californian premiere, California Museum of Photography, Riverside, 2017
Dutch premiere, Institute of Network Cultures, Amsterdam, 2016
PA premiere Data Half-lives, group show, University of Pittsburgh, 2016
Swedish premiere, European Society for Literature, Science and the Arts, 2016
US premiere, Start Here.Finish Here, group show, Cleveland, 2016
World premiere, transmediale festival, HKW, Berlin, 2016
2014
In the Best of All Possible Worlds (5 min)
Director, camera, writer, editor, sound
CA premiere, Los Angeles Film Forum, The Velaslavasay Panorama, 2015
MI premiere, Trans-Farm, Detroit, 2014
World premiere, Presentism film festival, WhiteSpace, Atlanta, 2014