BIO

Elizabeth Burden is a multidisciplinary artist engaged in artistic archivy.

She was born and raised in Lincoln, Nebraska, a middle-class Black girl with two parents who were professionals. Growing up, she attended two churches on Sunday—the neighborhood Methodist (white) one for Sunday school and an historic African Methodist Episcopal one for church services. She attended public schools and public universities. 

Each of those fairly unremarkable facts—and others not shared—colors her artistic practice. To borrow a phrase from professor, geographer, and prison abolitionist Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Elizabeth’s Black experience may not be entirely unique but it is distinct, producing a consciousness that guides her interpretive, analytical, and practical artistic practice. 

Her process begins with reading, research, and writing. Often, a specific artwork begins with a word of a phrase that prompts an imagining.  She then moves to researching and collecting archival materials, and  experimentating in the studio, (re)solving questions relating the philosophical, technical, relational, spatial, temporal, and practical aspects of the works.

Elizabeth has an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, an MS in Geographic Information Science, and bachelor’s degrees in Studio Art and Journalism.

She has been an artist-in-residence at the Santa Fe Arts Institute (Revolution Residency, 2022; Truth and Reconciliation Residency, 2019), and the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity (Trainings for the Not Yet, 2019), and was a  Mellon Projecting All Voices Fellow at  Arizona State University (2020).