Platonic Forms Print

Mari Amman (b. 1984, Dixon, Illinois, USA) is a global artist working with allegory. Her work with images, installations, poetry, performances, paintings, sculptures, videos, and designs are informed by concepts of Sublime Rheology and Geological Empathy. Comprised of Place, Memory, Embodiment, Surfaces, Technology, Mortality, Violence, machine and personified relations, her research in history, science, built environments, psychology, resonance and somatics stem from her curiosity with Platonic Idealism. An EIT Culture & Creativity Expert Evaluator, Amman resources her foundations in sound, philosophy, performance and parietal research to collaborate with music, science, architecture, and culture professionals to examine ethics and morality in the use of the imaginary to influence the real. Her interest in art, science, and the notion of intelligence grew from being raised near the Agonic line, surrounded by forest and prairie preserves, a nuclear power plant, and industrial agriculture. Ancestry with political activist Ellen Ammann and landscape artist Harriet Sundström motivated her auto-ethnographic research after moving from USA to Norway, while her critical apprehensions in geopolitics and background in design and marketing build upon her social psychology studies and research. She is a foundational artist to Art Farm Iowa (US, 2023) and Arte Expuesto (MX, 2023). Afjordance screened during AWMAS (UCSB, 2020); Omniscient, monolithic image and text, was awarded 1st by the jury in the Imaging New Eurasia exhibition, in Gwangju (SK, 2015). She was poet and artist-in-residence in Paris (FR, 2023), Bonny Doon (US, 2022), Kjerringøy Land Art (NO, 2020) guiding forest bathing and presenting Sublime Timescapes. She developed trauma informed psychological research and practical methods at Angelot-Trélex (CH, 2019), PraksisOslo, Praxisdansfestivalen, and Butoh residency with Mushimaru Fujieda at KHiO (NO, 2017, 2018). She holds a Master of Fine Art (honors) with Frankfurt School Theory/Conceptual Studio Practice from Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles (2015) and Bachelor of Fine Art (Dean's List) in Advertising/Interior Design from Illinois Institute of Art (2006), photography and photo history at College of Lake County in Grayslake, Illinois, and social psychology at Ehime University in Matsuyama, Japan (2012). Her forthcoming works are iterations of Trânsito and Suspended Planes at TEKS with UiO Cancer Cell research, Gong Teppe, Igloo.