# Vaughn Bell

Vaughn Bell (born 1978, Syracuse, New York) is an environmental artist working with sculpture, installation, performance and video, who lives and works in Seattle, Washington. Vaughn received her MFA from the Studio for Inter-related Media at Massachusetts College of Art in Boston, MA and her undergraduate degree from Brown University, where her work focused on "Nature and Culture: Human Perspectives on the Natural Environment".

## Work

Bell creates interactive projects and immersive environments which affect the ways in which we relate to our environment. She has exhibited her sculpture, installation, performance, video and public projects internationally. Her commissions include installations at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, the Edith Russ Site for New Media Art in Oldenburg, Germany, the Owens Walter E. Terhune Art Gallery in Ohio, and the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education [Wikidata] and Chemical Heritage Foundation in Philadelphia, PA. Her work has been featured in Artnews, Afterimage, and Arcade Journal, among others.
Many of her pieces are "personal biospheres", living spaces into which people can insert themselves at eye-to-ground level to intimately experience the sight, smell, and touch of a growing world. Some are single-person environments while others, like the "biosphere for three" at the Edith Russ House, accommodate multiple people. Vaughn Bell has also explored the boundaries between plants and people by making plants a part of wearable clothing, and treating them like pets.
Bell has been employed as a “staff artist” by the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT), working on arts planning and integrating design enhancements into public projects such as trails, sidewalks, and bridges.

## Selected Public Art

| Title | Date(s) | Location |
| Plantscapes | 2021 | Kew Royal Botanic Gardens, London, UK |
| Ship Canal Water Quality Project | 2018-2024 | Seattle, WA; Seattle Public Utilities; Seattle Office of Arts and Culture |
| Rain Gardens - Public Art | 2019-ongoing | Seattle, WA and surrounding King County; King County Water and Land Resources Division; 4Culture |
| All the Rivers in the World | 2019 | University of Washington, Tacoma, WA |
| Path of Water / Percorso d'acqua | 2017 | Hermitage of San Bartolomeo, Legio, Abruzzo, Italy |
| Public Art Master Plan for Drainage and Wastewater | 2016-2017 | Seattle, WA; Seattle Public Utilities; Seattle Office of Arts and Culture |
| Mossuments | 2013 | Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education, Philadelphia, PA |
| Metropolis | 2012 | Seattle Center, Seattle, WA; Seattle Center Foundation |
| Again, Life Becomes a River | 2007 | Kamiyama, Japan |

## Selected Museum and Gallery Exhibitions

| Title | Date(s) | Location |
| Local Homes | 2018 | Chicago Botanic Garden, Chicago, IL |
| This Land is Your Land | 2017 | Alcott Gallery, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC |
| Transported Landscapes | 2011 | Walter E. Terhune Gallery, Owens College, Toledo, Ohio |
| Thinking Caps | 2010 | Jack Straw New Media Gallery, Seattle, WA |
| Village Green / Badlands | 2008 | Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, North Adams, MA |
| Becoming a River | 2007 | Kamiyama, Japan |

## Grants, commissions and awards
### 2012

    Fellow, Virginia Center for Creative Arts, Amherst, VA

### 2010

    4Culture Grant for ALIVE (A Low Impact Vehicle Exhibition)

### 2009-2010

    Jack Straw Productions New Media Gallery Residency

### 2009

    4Culture Special Projects Grant recipient for "This Land" book

### 2007

    4Culture Special Projects Grant recipient for "From Sea to Shining Sea"
    4Culture Site Specific Performance Network Grant for "CUV”
    Kamiyama Japan International Artist in Residence

### 2006

    Full Fellowship, Vermont Studio Center
    Nancy Graves Foundation Fellow, Millay Colony

### 2005

    Home Biosphere Commission for the offices of Carmichael Lynch, Minneapolis, MN

### 2004

    Artist in Research Grant, Berwick Research Institute, Boston, MA
    Work installed in the offices of the New England Foundation For the Arts, Boston, MA