Humble, TX Native Liss LaFleur Recognized as a 2020-2021 Kennedy Citizen Artist Fellow

Texas-based Liss LaFleur has been named a Citizen Artist Fellow for 2020-2021.

Texas-based artist  Liss LaFleur has been named a Citizen Artist Fellow for 2020-2021 by The Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. The Humble, Texas (Houston area) native, along with a cohort of poets, activists, writers, and visual artists, including Damon Davis, Ana Masacote, Anthony Torres, Beatrice Thomas, Marvin K. White, Yancy Villa-Calvo, have been honored. Since its inception in 2016, the program has tapped artists nationally whose works have a positive impact in their communities.

“I’m extremely honored to be recognized with this fellowship and excited to become a part of the Kennedy Center’s socially-minded arts community,” LaFleur writes in an email to Glasstire. “In the year ahead, I hope to use this time of mentorship and camaraderie to pause, reassess, collaborate and build new community based work in Texas and abroad — whether through my artistic practicing, my teaching, or through activism/organizing.”

Artist sketch of 3D digital window designed as part of LaFleur’s Coded Glass series.

LaFleur is the first Fellow from the state of Texas. She is an Assistant Professor and Program Coordinator of New Media Art in the College of Visual Art & Design at the University of North Texas, and her studio is located in Denton. Among other projects, LaFleur will continue work on Coded Glass, a series of digital stained glass which she developed in 2018 as an Immersive Scholar at North Caroline State University. Coded Glass “explores the urgency of the #MeToo movement, and the role of social technology.”

Liss LaFleur from Chatterbox (still), 2016.

“I began thinking about other manifestations that could combine art and technology, community activism, glass and digital fabrication,” Lafleur states about her upcoming fellowship. “It’s my goal to create a set of anachronistic and speculative works that investigate digital forms of protest.”

Coded glass series 2018, Liss LaFleur.

Fellows will participate in the Kennedy Center’s annual Arts Summit of thought leaders from related fields, as well as collaborate and receive mentorship at the Center’s Retreat. Center Staff will be available via conference calls to honorees and all fellows will receive opportunities and information about grants and other resources through Kennedy Center partners. The list of partners sharing information and opportunities include Aspen Institute, National Endowment for the Arts, ArtChangeUS, and Citizen University.

For more on the Kennedy Center and its 2020-2021 Fellows, please go here.

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Liss LaFleur (b. 1987, Humble, TX) is an interdisciplinary artist who works with video, new media, and performance. Through the merging of digital and physical space, she explores queer identity, the future of feminism, and historical narratives. She is a 20-21 Kennedy Citizen Artist Fellow, and in 2018 she was named an Immersive Scholar by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Her work has been exhibited internationally, including presentations at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston; TATE Modern, UK; Cannes Court Métrage, FR; PBS/ POV Digital; the Reykjavik Art Museum, IS; the Museum of Glass, US; Sister Gallery, AU; and the Czong Institute for Contemporary Art, South Korea. LaFleur received an MFA in Media Art from Emerson College, and is an Assistant Professor of New Media Art in the College of Visual Art & Design at the University of North Texas.