ANN HAMILTON:

Born in 1956 in Lima, Ohio Ann Hamilton trained in textile design at the University of Kansas. Ann later received an MFA from Yale University. With a degree in sculpture, textiles and fabric have been extremely important to her work, which includes installations, photographs, videos, performances, and objects. Following graduation she made “Toothpick Suit,” for which she layered thousands of toothpicks in porcupine fashion along a suit of clothes. Ann then wore the design and photographed. Sensual installations usually included evocative soundtracks with cloth, filmed footage, organic material, and objects such as tables. She has also been interested in verbal and written language and sees the two as related and interchangeable. Hamilton has experimented with exchanging one sense organ for another—the mouth and fingers, become like an eye with the addition of miniature pinhole cameras. As the 1999 American representative at the Venice Biennale, her instalation of slavery and oppression in American used walls embossed with Braille. The embossed Braille caught a dazzling red powder as it slid down from above, literally making language visible. After teaching at the University of California at Santa Barbara from 1985 to 1991, she returned to Ohio, where she lives and works.

(information found at http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/hamilton/index.html)