In “Civil Twilights,” Lion records the seemingly mundane events of the day as the light travels from dusk and dawn at sites of nuclear testing. (Photo courtesy Lion)
Jenny Lion Peeks Behind the Curtains of American Landscapes
Jenny Lion’s life has been a study in peeking behind the curtain. The new assistant professor of the practice of Art, Art History & Visual Studies was trained as a professional dancer but found her passion in moving image.
Lion works with film and video in cinematic, participatory and gallery contexts. She frequently collaborates, in groups and with individuals, and often over long periods of time. Her collective and individual video projects have screened widely and received funding from the Jerome, Bush and McKnight Foundations and the Canada Council for the Arts, and her curatorial work on expanded documentary practices and Canadian artists’ video has been widely exhibited.
Lion has been working with northern Nevada residents since 2005, and she is currently collaborating with pioneering video artist Wendy Clarke re-enacting the historic participatory project The Love Tapes. She is a Guggenheim Fellow (2022-23), a 2021 Creative Capital Awardee, a 2022 and ongoing Wexner Center for the Arts Film/Video Studio Resident, and a 2023 McKnight Foundation Media Arts Fellow. Her book Magnetic North: Canadian Experimental Video was published by the University of Minnesota Press.
At Duke, she will be teaching film and video in the Cinematic Arts Program and for the MFA in Experimental and Documentary Arts, developing new classes on artists’ video and experimental documentary practice. Her teaching approach combines a deep integration of history and production, incorporating rigor, risk-taking and fun conceptual experimentation.