Alfred Jaar (b. 1956) is an artist, architect, and filmmaker who lives and works in New York and was born in Santiago de Chile. He attended Instituto Chileno-Norteamericano de Cultura, Santiago (1979) and University of Chile (1981). In addition to Park of Laments, Jaar has created more than sixty "Public Interventions" around the world. Alfredo Jaar incorporates photography, film, text, and sculpture into works that look to the relationship between ethics and aesthetics. His works draw from first-hand witness accounts and research of issues such as toxic waste in Africa, gold mining in Brazil, and genocide in Rwanda. Jaar has received many awards, including a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Award (2000); a Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award (1987); and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts (1987); and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation (1985). He has had major exhibitions at the Museum of Fine Arts (Houston), Houston (2005); Museum of Contemporary Art of Rome (2005); MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts (1999); and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (1992).