The Fiber Dept Is Proud To Announce Our New Full Time Fiber Faculty Member - Liz Ensz!
LIZ ENSZ was born in Minnesota to a resourceful family of penny-savers, metal scrappers, and curators of cast-offs. They received their BFA in Fiber from the Maryland Institute College of Art (2005), and their MFA in Fiber & Material Studies from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2013).
As an extension of their practice, they have worked collaboratively to create platforms for others, developing The Visitor Center Artist Camp’s Sustainable Practice Symposium, and as a member of the Leadership Team for FORCE: Upsetting Rape Culture, The Monument Quilt.
Ensz has exhibited textiles and sculpture nationwide, has been awarded residencies at The John Michael Kohler Arts/Industry Program in Foundry, Sheboygan, WI; Salem Art Works, Salem, NY: Playa, Summer Lake, OR; LATITUDE, Chicago, IL; and Blue Mountain Center, Blue Mountain Lake, NY; and has been the recipient of City of Chicago DCASE Individual Artist Grant, The Creative Baltimore Fund Grant, The Gilroy Roberts Fellowship, and The Gelman Travel Fellowship.
With an interdisciplinary approach, Ensz presents a comparative study of the mass-cultural investment in disposability and the human desire to imagine permanence through emblems, monuments, and commemoration. At the heart of their practice lies a determined material engagement, scavenger impulse, and the rethinking of the valuation of life, matter, and the environment.