About

Artist Statement

My practice consists of looking back on my ancestry and attempting to learn from those who came before me. Through the imposing and crossing of borders and the passage of time, much of my familial history has been lost. Much of what I know has come from stories told to me by my grandmother. In 2007 my grandmother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and my mother and I became her caretakers. As a result, much of my work is an attempt at uncovering and preserving fleeting memories. Being an interdisciplinary artist, I use aspects of photography, video, performance, and installation to explore questions around what it means to have a multilayered and evolving identity, and what it means to be a Chicanx woman from the Borderlands of the southwestern United States. I look towards connections with others and the land to discuss global issues of migration, race, and gender inequality and towards technology to deepen these connections and to explore new ways of communicating. Inspired by academics such as Gloria Anzaldúa and activists like Dolores Huerta, I engage in social practice and community based work that aims to start conversations that can lead to structural change and imagine new solutions to systemic problems that are facing the world today.

Bio

Savanah Pennell is an artist, activist, and curator from Gilbert, Arizona. She is currently based in New York City and is working on a series of projects revolving around borders, identity, and memory. Savanah received her BA in Art History from Arizona State University in December of 2016, and her MA in Arts Politics from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts in 2019. She has recently shown artwork at the Fringe Art Bath Festival in Bath, UK, and has showcased her co-created video installation and conversation based event From Palestine to Mexico: Fronteras, Hudud, Borders at the Bowery Poetry Club. In 2019 Savanah was awarded the Tisch Initiative for Creative Research Grant to attend the Sharjah Biennial 14 and to investigate the role of socially engaged art in the biennial setting. She has also recently launched her co-curated online collection of artists Insert Woman Here. This collection is an ongoing database of female artists who work within the theme of unseen labor. Savanah has worked in various capacities for such institutions as the ASU Art Museum, the Museum of Walking, and Pen + Brush. She has also been an art educator, working as an afterschool art instructor for Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater Scottsdale. As an activist, Savanah has worked with such organizations as Amnesty International USA as an organizer of student chapters and coordinator of events revolving around campaigns to end human rights abuses.