Artist Statement/ Biography

Through her work in video, performance, and social practice, Maya Jeffereis focuses on the politics of identity and the role of history and memory. Her research-based practice takes a conversation, a document, or a history as a point of departure. She is interested in the loser’s history--who left out of the textbook and what stories are overlooked, forgotten, or disappeared. Her work shares the stories and experiences of people who have been historically marginalized. As a woman of mixed race, the daughter of an immigrant, and the granddaughter of a Japanese American internment survivor, she believes that the dominant narratives must be replaced by alternative narratives, personal stories, and acts of resistance and community-building.

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Maya Kaminishi Jeffereis (b. Los Angeles; lives and works in New York City) works in video, performance, and social practice. Recent exhibitions and screenings of her work have been organized at Chashama, Brooklyn (forthcoming, 2018); ArtHub Asia, Shanghai (forthcoming, 2018); Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C. (2017); SOHO20 Gallery, Brooklyn (2017); Flux Factory, Long Island City (2016); and the New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain, CT (2016). She has received awards from the Dick and Lois Haskayne Artist Award, Vermont Studio Center, Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Cisneros Initiative for Latin American Art, Luetz Riedel Fellowship, and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Maya received an MFA from Hunter College in New York City and a BFA and BA from the University of Washington in Seattle.