Julia Christensen is an artist, musician, and writer whose work explores systems of time, change, landscape, and technology. Her interdisciplinary projects have exhibited at art venues including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Walker Art Center, Eyebeam, Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland, Carnegie Museum of Art, and internationally in France, India, Greece, Finland, and beyond. She has been invited to speak about her projects at Yale University, CalTech, Carnegie Mellon, the National Arts Club, IdeaFestival, Dreamworks Studios, and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab.
Christensen is the author of Big Box Reuse (MIT Press, 2008), a book about her interdisciplinary art project documenting civic and community-driven reclamations of abandoned Walmart and K-Mart buildings in the United States. Christensen’s second book, Upgrade Available (Dancing Foxes, 2020), follows the artist’s years-long exploration into “upgrade culture,” tracing the impacts of living in a technological world where an upgrade is always available. Her writing has additionally appeared in numerous publications including Cabinet, Architect Magazine, Print, Slate, and Hyperallergic.
Christensen’s work has received awards from Creative Capital (2013), LACMA Art + Tech Lab (2017), and the Guggenheim Foundation (2018). She has been awarded artist residencies at the MacDowell Colony, Media Archaeology Lab , Wexner Center Film + Media Studio, Experimental Television Center, and the Fulcrum Art and Science Incubator. She is the President of the Space Song Foundation, a non-profit she founded with visionary scientists and engineers to cultivate long-term thinking at the intersection of art, science, and design for applications in outer space. She is a board member of the Center for Land Use Interpretation in Culver City, CA.
Christensen is the Eva and John Youg-Hunter Professor of Art at Oberlin College, where she is also the director of the dual degree BA/BFA in Integrated Arts. She previously taught at Stanford University, California College of Art, and Pratt/Utica. She is an alum of Bard College, Mills College, RPI, and Interlochen Arts Academy.