Heather Zehren
Heather Zehren Albinson grew up in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains on a horse ranch surrounded by wilderness. She has since lived in San Francisco, Washington DC, New York, and Barcelona, where she currently spends most of her time. After earning a degree in Environmental Science, and subsequently an MBA from the University of California at Berkeley, Heather spent the majority of her professional career in the field of environmental conservation. She worked at World Wildlife Fund (WWF) for over a decade, both in the organization's US headquarters in Washington DC and in a San Francisco regional office, which she founded.
Heather has taken studio art classes at the San Francisco Art Institute and the Corcoran School of Art, among others, and she served on the Executive Board of the Headlands Center for the Arts in Marin, CA and on SFMOMA's Director's Circle. She is currently completing an advanced level studio arts program at Metàfora in Barcelona.
Working in collaboration with objects, Heather investigates the intersections between matter and consciousness. Referencing her background in environmental science and economics, she employs basic principles of theoretical physics and biology, as well as neuroscience and philosophy, to explore the immateriality of objects and their agency.
By establishing a dialogue with discarded found objects in various states of degradation, Heather reimagines their function and challenges both the subject object divide as well as the illusion of creative authorship. In a world gone mad with rampant manufacturing and overconsumption, she seeks to stimulate discourse about our human relationship to objects, cycles of physical change, and the interconnectedness between the natural, material and immaterial world.
