Janet Biggs' Global Explorations Yield Provocative Video Works on Environment and Perception

Janet Biggs creates video works through expeditions to extreme environments, from the High Arctic to China's Taklamaken Desert, examining climate change and human nature. Her 2010-11 Arctic Trilogy documents global warming impacts, while 2013's Point of No Return involved camel travel in western China. Biggs transforms gathered materials into projected installations that question environmental and perceptual realities. Her 2015 four-channel video Can't Find My Way Home explores Alzheimer's disease through aesthetic balance. Recent solo exhibition Echo of the Unknown at Houston's Blaffer Art Museum featured three films highlighting atmospheric shifts. Biggs has presented solo shows at MAC Montréal, Hirshhorn Museum in Washington D.C., and Tampa Museum of Art. Her work appeared in Cartagena's first International Biennial of Contemporary Art, Musée d'art contemporain de Lyon, and Taiwan's National Museum of Fine Arts. ArtReview originally published this profile in January & February 2016, selecting Biggs as a future great with Lynn Hershman Leeson as curator.