Smita Sen: Embodied

Smita Sen is a sculptor and performance artist who is known for working with sculpture, dance performances as well as using advanced technology to create photographs and videography to research how to the body moves depending on the environment and feeling.

In Sen’s forthcoming exhibition with MOCA will explore and feature the artist's use of her dance-based performances and how she developed sculptures and drawing based on her movements in her early and most recent works.

The use of advanced technology and 3D models like her series, Feelings, Fossilized came from a time of injury when she was unable to complete large scale performances and used technology as a way to create sculptures without compromising her body. Smita Sen's work in the end is an attempt to understand the resilience and malleability of the body by continuously finding support in its healing mechanisms.

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About the artist

Smita Sen (b.1994) is an artist working with sculpture, dance-based performance, and advanced technology to research how the body internalizes its environment and significant life events. Sen has had solo exhibitions at Recess (2021), the Brooklyn Public Library (2022), and Drew University (2023). Her work has been performed and exhibited at venues around the world, including The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the Frost Art Museum, Socrates Sculpture Park, the New World Center, the Aspen Ideas Festival, the Knockdown Center, and Anthology Film Archives, among others. Sen’s artwork and research has been supported by institutions including NEW INC, the New Museum’s incubator; Recess; Oolite Arts; the Bakehouse Arts Complex; and the Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs.  She is a recipient of the Dance Miami Choreographers award (2023), the Oolite Ellies Creator Award (2022), and the Instigator Fellowship from NYU ITP Camp (2018). An educator, Sen believes in the power of a collaborative classroom and, from 2019 to 2022, was teaching and designing the Emerging Media program at Choate Rosemary Hall. She currently teaches at the Parsons School of Design, The New School, while leading Miami-based arts education nonprofit, the Manipura Care Network. Sen is a graduate of Columbia University (2016).

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Artist photo: Pedro Wazzan