MARK JEFFERY BIOGRAPHY

Mark Jeffery (B. 1973 Doveridge, UK) is a Chicago based Performance / Installation Artist, Curator and teacher. Mark received his BA (Hons) in Visual Performance from Dartington College of Arts in UK. He was awarded a Junior Fellowship in Live Art between the University of the West of England and Arnolfini Live.

He has been making collaborative and non-collaborative performance / installation / internet / screen works and participation based exhibits in numerous spaces and contexts since 1993 including ASU Art Museum, Arizona, Cathedral Quarter Lincoln, UK, Edinburgh College of Art, Inspace, Edinburgh, Hyde Park Art Center Chicago, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Ontological Theatre NYC, Performance Studies #15 Zagreb, Croatia, Interrupt Digital Arts Festival (Brown University), Kunsthalle Museum (Norway), Site Unseen (Chicago Cultural Centre), Nottdance (Nottingham), Taxi Gallery (Cambridge, UK), National Review of Live Art (Glasgow), ICA (London), Arnolfini (Bristol), Firstsite (Colchester), Green Room (Manchester), and Chapter (Cardiff).

He was a member of Goat Island Performance Group from 1996 - 2009. He collaborated and performed in 5 of Goat Island's works, touring and teaching extensively across North America and Europe. Teaching included a 10 yearlong annual summer performance institute at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Other educational cities including Bristol, Glasgow, Nottingham, Aberystwyth, Zagreb, Prague and Berlin. Goat Island completed touring its last performance work, The Lastmaker, in February 2009. Performances included PS122 (NYC), Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago), Eurokaz Festival (Zagreb), The House of World Cultures (Berlin), New Moves (Glasgow) and Arnolfini (Bristol). The company presented their penultimate work 'When Will the September Roses Bloom Last Night Was Only a Comedy' at the Venice Biennale in 2005.

Mark is currently an Assistant Professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where he teaches in the Performance Department. Since 2006 he has been active curating performance in Chicago including the bi annual IN>TIME performance series hosted by the Chicago Cultural Center. In 2013 IN>TIME will become citywide with 12 venues participating in a festival of performance. Other curatorial projects in Chicago have included OPENPORT a Performance, Language and Sound series, Intimate and Epic: Small Acts for the City in Millennium Park in Chicago, in 2011; an exhibition, performance and symposium at The School of the Art Institute called The Simulationists. In 2012 he curated a screening at Hyde Park Art Center of performance and dance video and films titled: Paying Attention.

In 2009, Mark began a new collaborative teaching summer Performance Institute with Matthew Goulish and Lin Hixson titled Abandoned Practices - something out of the ordinary: http://www.abandonedpractices.org This past summer Abandoned Practices took place in Prague and will continue to do so in 2013.