Ahree Lee is a multi-disciplinary artist working in video, new media, and textiles. Lee received her B.A. from Yale University in English literature and a M.F.A. in graphic design from Yale School of Art. Her commissions include the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco, the Irish Museum of Modern Art, the 01SJ Biennial, Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, and the Sundance Channel. Her honors include an artist residency at Santa Fe Art Institute and a Rema Hort Mann Emerging Artist Award nomination, and her work has been written about in Hyperallergic, Metropolis, and Fast Company.
I am a multi-disciplinary artist working in video, new media, and textiles. I came to my art practice through an unlikely path: working in user experience design in Silicon Valley. Like a UX designer, I methodically research, gather data, and synthesize findings, but as an artist my data points capture human memories, emotions, and experiences. I piece together larger truths these data points reveal and connect them to patterns in history and society around craft, technology, labor, gender. I use patterns and algorithms interchangeably to show that the line between craft and technology is arbitrary and often based on gender-biased valuations of female labor. My recent body of work centers the instrumental role women played in the history of computing, a surprise to many considering today's male-dominated tech industry. In my current project, weaving, video, e-textiles, and installation come together to manifest an alternate present: women and men weave computer code and stitch circuits together, changing the very definition of technology and to whom it belongs.