Jennifer Parker is a Professor and founding Director of the OpenLab Collaborative Research Center at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
As a media artist, Parker is recognized for her innovative work investigating issues of biology and technology, combining art, ecology, and design. Through multi-sensory and interdisciplinary collaborations, she engages scientific and creative practices to explore the sensorial world of humans and beyond the human world of species living on and off planet.
As an educator, Parker carves sites for collective engagement between disciplines. Facilitating, identifying, and determining the boundaries of complex, multi-dimensional space with the aim to develop (a sense of) community to encourage learning and inform and develop the practice of its members. Her methods of inquiry build on lab and studio visits, literature reviews, and conversations with faculty and students across disciplines, triggering a heuristic learning process to pursue creative research for exhibitions and publications.
Parker received a BA in art from the University of California Santa Barbara in 1990 and an MFA in sculpture from Rutgers University in 1992. She has been part of the faculty at the University of California Santa Cruz since 1999 in the Art Department, served the Digital Arts and New Media MFA program from 2008 to 2019, and has served the Environmental Art and Social Practice MFA program since 2021.
Contact: parker1(@) ucsc . edu
WRITING/PUBLICATIONS
Confluence in conversation: Ken Rinaldo, Jennifer Parker, Gene Felice, Juniper Harrower, Jose Carlos Espinel, and David Harris
Antennae – The Journal of Nature in Visual Culture
The Algae Society: BioArt & Design Lab, Confluence Exhibition
The Algae Society BioArt Design Lab: Exploring multispecies entanglements and making kin with algae
Juniper Harrower, Gene Felice, Jennifer Parker, José Carlos Espinel, David Harris, Fiona Hillary, Tiare Ribeaux
MIT Press Direct/Leonardo December 14, 2021
https://doi.org/10.18848/1833-1866/CGP/v14i01/13-20
Algae Society BioArt & Design Lab
Science and Collectivism in Artistic Creation: Embracing Climate Change through Art
Espinel J., Parker J., Espinel-Velasco N. 2020
The International Journal of the Arts in Society: Annual Review. Volume 14, Issue 1:12-20. ISSN: 1833-1866 (Print),
Species Loss: Exploring Opportunities with Art–Science
Jennifer Harrower, Jennifer Parker, Martha Merson Integrative and Comparative Biology, Volume 58, Issue 1, July 2018, Pages 103–112, Published: 19 May 2018
https://doi.org/10.1093/icb/icy016
Making Sense of Sensors
Kate O’Riordan / Jennifer Parker / David Harris / Emile Devereaux
Digital Culture & Society (DCS),Vol. 3, Issue 1/2017 – by Annika Richterich / Karin Wenz / Pablo Abend / Mathias Fuchs / Ramón Reichert (eds.)
Published Online: 2017-06-27 (Jun 2017)
https://assets.thalia.media/doc/db/e0/dbe0d10f-b7f3-4973-9f02-eab6cca9ccfc.pdf
Chapter: Slow FAST Forward: Enacting Digital Art and Civic Opportunities by J. Parker
Book: Artistic Citizenship: Artistry, Social Responsibility, and Ethical Praxis
David Elliott, Marissa Silverman, and Wayne BowmanPrint publication date: 2016
Print ISBN-13: 9780199393749, Published to Oxford Scholarship
Oline: October 2016 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199393749.001.0001
Steps to an Ecology of Networked Knowledge and Innovation: Enabling New Forms of Collaboration among Sciences, Engineering, Arts, and Design
Roger F. Malina, Carol Strohecker, and Carol LaFayette, on behalf of SEAD network contributors
(Parker, J., is a SEAD network member and white paper author cited on pages 3,60-62,79): MIT Press Journals 2015