Lauren Dana Smith

05/13/2025

I’m so honored to have my experimental short film, V.I.S.T.A.: Transmutationist Field Journal included in COOP Gallery’s Microcinema festival on May 30-31 in Nashville, Tennessee. Thank you to the curators for selecting my work! The festival will be accompanied by “Deconstructing the Moving Image,” an exhibition organized by I’m looking forward to meeting the other artists and having a few days in Nashville. Come by if you’re local!

My VISTA project is a short, original video-sound composition that is part of a broader arts-based research project. This is part I of IV and was finished in 2023. Part II is currently in production - stay tuned and learn more on my website.

VISTA asks the questions: What if the Origin of Species narrative occurred outside of the bounds of the social constructs of the Western, patriarchal, European and Victorian/colonialist framework available in 1831? What if Darwin’s primordial soup was a primordial ether, and consciousness was a self-generative digital apparition, defying binary classification? What if evolution is a mode of consciousness and Darwin’s early contributions existed concurrently with parallel, multitudinous inquiries into terrestrial experience across another expression of reality? The V.I.S.T.A.: Transmutationist Field Journal project was inspired through the artist’s personal orientation to the landscape, legacy and mythology of the American Southwest, psychodynamic theory, research into Natural Selection and the Darwin narrative; in particular expedition archives, travel logs and subsequent sociocultural critiques.

12/09/2024

Taos lately

11/19/2024

Winter light

10/31/2024

Hey, We’re in the news!
Thanks and for the awesome highlight! SEE YOU TONIGHT AT THE BALL! 🪩🤍🎃🔥✨👻

Thursday, October 31st - ON HALLOWEEN at DALEEE @ KTAOS SOLAR CENTER - 6PM TIL CLOSE
9 NM-150 TAOS, NEW MEXICO
Tickets $15 - a portion of the proceeds will benefit Community Against Violence (taoscav.org)
⚡️Halloween Portraits⚡️
👻 🪩🔥7pm Dance Party with DJ RAGER (LET’s BOOOOOgie!)
👻 8pm Costume Contest with prizes (BRING YOUR A-GAME)
Come get weird with us! DANCING THROUGH THE NIGHT!
🎃🪩🎃🪩🎃🪩🎃🪩🎃🪩🎃🪩🎃🪩🎃🪩🎃🪩

10/27/2024

10/11/2024

Aurora Borealis.
Facing Northeast towards the mountains in our yard.

09/20/2024

Installation view of my art-based research video/sound installation project,
V.I.S.T.A.: TRANSMUTATIONIST FIELD JOURNAL
September 11 – 29, 2024   Exhibition “Visual Culture 2024” at the CICA Museum, Korea

International Symposium for Visual Culture 2024
CICA invites artists, scholars, and researchers worldwide to participate in the International Symposium & Exhibition for Visual Culture 2024. The community of artists, researchers and academics meets in the international symposium in downtown Silver Spring, Maryland, adjacent to Washington, D.C., and participates in the exhibition at the CICA Museum in Korea.
ISVC is an international platform for diverse and critical perspectives on visual culture. Through ISVC, we aim to create a global network of researchers/artists and consumers/makers of visual culture, and foster critical thoughts and in-depth understanding of visual culture on a global scale.

It’s an honor to be included with this group
https://cicamuseum.com/isvc/presenters-2024/

09/13/2024

Home

09/13/2024

Last weekend to see my solo exhibition, Recall: Sculptural Myth & Memory at alongside the excellent inaugural group exhibition of

Details from my current solo exhibition at the Harwood Art Center in Albuquerque, New Mexico by photographer-in-residence, Aziza Murray.
This is the last week to view the exhibition. The gallery is open Thursday, Friday and Saturday or by appointment. You may watch the short video essay about this exhibition at the link in my bio.
🎥

Recall: Sculptural Myth + Memory
Harwood Art Center

On view August 8th - September 14th, 2024
On view Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays: 10am – 3pm or by appointment
1114 7th St NW, Albuquerque, New Mexico

“The nine works within the Recall series locate themselves in myth and memory as well as the present. The memory of human experience, of mending the body and the mind, and the myth that we are broken and cannot be repaired. Through this experiential sculptural series I think often about parallels between body and land. How we may become psychologically eroded over time and yet through these experiences, new formations of self may emerge – possibly more durable than before. I ask, “where does the earth end and my body begin? Where does your body begin and where does it end? How can we be both?”

Visit the link in my bio to view more information about the exhibition online.

Harwood Photographer in Residence, Aziza Murray

09/11/2024

I’m honored to be included in the International Symposium and Exhibition for Visual Culture 2024, hosted by in Gyeonggi-do, South Korea. The exhibition will be on view September 11-29, 2024. My video/sound installation: V.I.S.T.A: Transmutationist Field Journal will be shown.

International Symposium & Exhibition for Visual Culture 2024

ISVC Website: https://cicamuseum.com/isvc

September 11 – 29, 2024 Exhibition “Visual Culture 2024” at the CICA Museum, Korea

September 14 – 15, 2024 International Symposium for Visual Culture 2024 in Silver Spring Maryland

Featured Artists 참여작가: Sue Collier & Danelle Bernten, Isobel Rose Binnie, Cedric van Eenoo, Chung Chak, Jingyi Chen, Luo Chen, DIAMOND.K (강민영), Dodd Holsapple, Barbie Kim, Sang Woo Samuel Kim(김상우), Lavita Yuqing Lai, Maddy Lee(이연우), Xiaoyu Liu, Feixue Mei, Nicholas M. Milkovich, Elena Peteva, Silvia Ruzanka, Lauren Ruiz, Lauren Dana Smith, Zhi Han

We invite artists, scholars, and researchers worldwide to participate in the International Symposium & Exhibition for Visual Culture 2024. The community of artists, researchers and academics meets in the international symposium in downtown Silver Spring, Maryland, adjacent to Washington, D.C., and participates in the exhibition at the CICA Museum in Korea.

ISVC is an international platform for diverse and critical perspectives on visual culture. Through ISVC, we aim to create a global network of researchers/artists and consumers/makers of visual culture, and foster critical thoughts and in-depth understanding of visual culture on a global scale.

Started from the sculptor Czong Ho Kim’s studio in 1994, Czong Institute for Contemporary Art (CICA) became a unique cultural space founded and cultivated by artists. Not only CICA fosters projects of experimental artists, we are open for everyone to learn about Contemporary Art and apply it to one’s life. We aim to provide a creative, yet comfortable space for artists and the community to nurture their creative and critical thinking with visual culture while they communicate with each other.

09/10/2024

Details from my current solo exhibition at the Harwood Art Center in Albuquerque, New Mexico by photographer-in-residence, Aziza Murray.
This is the last week to view the exhibition. The gallery is open Thursday, Friday and Saturday or by appointment. You may watch the short video essay about this exhibition at the link in my bio.
🎥

Recall: Sculptural Myth + Memory
Harwood Art Center

On view August 8th - September 14th, 2024
On view Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays: 10am – 3pm or by appointment
1114 7th St NW, Albuquerque, New Mexico

“The nine works within the Recall series locate themselves in myth and memory as well as the present. The memory of human experience, of mending the body and the mind, and the myth that we are broken and cannot be repaired. Through this experiential sculptural series I think often about parallels between body and land. How we may become psychologically eroded over time and yet through these experiences, new formations of self may emerge – possibly more durable than before. I ask, “where does the earth end and my body begin? Where does your body begin and where does it end? How can we be both?”

Visit the link in my bio to view more information about the exhibition online.

Harwood Photographer in Residence, Aziza Murray