Photo by Formidable Entities, taken on my great-grandfather's grave
Statement:
I was raised in rural Appalachian Maryland. My childhood was filled with lonely observation, marking the changes in the forest and sky, regularly casting spells and asking animist spirits for world peace and to help me make friends. While the second wish did eventually come true, collectively we have been subject to a growing epidemic of isolation and social alienation. As an art educator I mentor teenagers who struggle with loneliness and excessive self-criticism, and as an organizer for abolition efforts and teacher unions I've helped build coalitions when aggressive, better-resourced forces have tried to keep us disconnected. These experiences are related and especially relevant now, as people are forcibly removed from families and communities are fractured and denied agency of their own bodies. Meanwhile corporate predation continues to harvest our attention as we hustle just to get by. This alienation and violence echoes through our bodies and minds.
In response to these mechanisms of manipulation, my art practice facilitates an alternative attention to our surroundings and each other by proposing unusual modes of relation. I aim to interrupt isolation and find meaning by making the familiar strange. By using banal experiences as reference points (folding chairs, a sandwich bag, plastic straws), I rearrange our shared physical reality in unexpected, sometimes humorous ways. Meaning and connection can be felt through moments of synchronicity and invisible phenomena made perceptible, such as the loud sound of the absence of people, or soil taken from a remote ICE detention center illuminated by a spotlight. I aim to reveal resonance and significance that is obscured by systems that dehumanize and separate. By proposing inventive ways to orient ourselves, I hope to reveal patterns that influence how we relate to each other.
Summary of winning:
Gwyneth Zeleny Anderson has presented work nationally and abroad, including at Roman Susan Art Foundation, Weinberg/Newton Gallery, the Chicago Cultural Center, Roots & Culture, and the Hyde Park Art Center (Chicago), MoMA PS1 Print Shop and All Things Project (New York), Peephole Cinema (San Francisco), St. Charles Projects (Baltimore), and the Freies Museum (Berlin). They've been an artist-in-residence at the Institute for Electronic Arts (New York), the Experimental Sound Studio (Chicago), Utopiana (Switzerland), and FRISE (Germany), among others. Gwyneth's work is included in collections at FRISE and the Institute of Contemporary Art Library in Baltimore, and their projects have been written about in Newcity, the Chicago Reader, and Teen Vogue. They were trained in Pauline Oliveros' Deep Listening program, were an organizer with the Chicago abolitionist collective Make Yourself Useful, and have worked as a teaching artist for Chicago Public School students for the past 15 years. They earned their MFA from Tyler School of Art and Architecture and BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and currently live in Philadelphia.
An alternative summary:
Gwyneth Zeleny Anderson:
- missed an email
- upset the curator
- pointed a projector at the sky then saw a shooting star
- was distracted by their day job
- counted the number of cells in a seed
- was promised the opportunity, then heard nothing
- invited strangers to touch a cold hard lump
- could only do it because of someone else's expertise
- got the opportunity without even applying
- cried in the bathroom for being too shy
- was reassured by achievements
- was disappointed by achievements
- hopes it's enoughInterviews and press:
Embodiment in Art Practice by Michaela Chan, AMA Journal of Ethics, June 2025
Interview with Tate Shaw on Mouth Sounds, WAYO community radio, June 2024
Interview with Dan Manion on Inside the Edition, Chicago Printmakers Guild podcast, April 2022
Interview with Nance Klehm on Lumpen Radio, October 2021
Return to the Everywhere at Weinberg/Newton Gallery, Chicago Artist Writers, March 2020
Survey for White Artists, Monday Journal, April 2020
Bill Meyer reviews Chyme, Dusted Magazine, March 2019
Interview with Stacia Yeapanis for OtherPeoplesPixels, December 2014
Laughing Video recommendation, Chicago Magazine, November 2011
