Ruth Burke is an interdisciplinary artist, from and of the Midwest, who collaborates with animals in her creative practice. She is a teamster, farm laborer, professor, equestrian, and cultural worker. Straddling the practice of contemporary art and the field of human-animal studies, Burke has exclusively focused on human-animal relationships in her practice since 2015.
Burke’s earthworks have been included in the 4GROUND Land Art Biennial (2022) and Terrain Biennial (2021.) Her solo exhibitions include Polyrhythms (2020) at HSpace Gallery/The Muted Horn in Cleveland, Ohio, Susurrus (2019) at Mantle Artspace in San Antonio, Texas, and Mapping Empathy (2016) at halka art project in Istanbul, Turkey. Ruth has received grant funding for projects from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, the Greater Columbus Arts Council, and multiple educational institutions. Burke was a resident artist at ACRE (2019), a Michele Schara AIR at Detroit Community School (2017), and was a fellow in the inaugural cohort at the Animals & Society Institute (2017), at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Burke has co-authored articles in the peer reviewed journals Society & Animals, and Zoophilogia.
She was a longstanding artist-in-residence at Firesign Farm (2016-2021) and mentored by farmer Ruth Ehman. Ruth Burke is currently an Assistant Professor of Video Art in the Wonsook Kim College of Fine Arts, School of Art at Illinois State University. She recently received the University-level Creative Arts Initiative Award, which recognizes scholars with exceptional promise early in their careers.
Ruth owns and runs DAP STUDIOS, an LLC through which her and her animals are available for hire for public artworks, small scale agricultural cultivation, and presence at events.
Ruth serves on the Board of Directors of the Midwest Ox Drovers Association.
Burke’s earthworks have been included in the 4GROUND Land Art Biennial (2022) and Terrain Biennial (2021.) Her solo exhibitions include Polyrhythms (2020) at HSpace Gallery/The Muted Horn in Cleveland, Ohio, Susurrus (2019) at Mantle Artspace in San Antonio, Texas, and Mapping Empathy (2016) at halka art project in Istanbul, Turkey. Ruth has received grant funding for projects from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, the Greater Columbus Arts Council, and multiple educational institutions. Burke was a resident artist at ACRE (2019), a Michele Schara AIR at Detroit Community School (2017), and was a fellow in the inaugural cohort at the Animals & Society Institute (2017), at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Burke has co-authored articles in the peer reviewed journals Society & Animals, and Zoophilogia.
She was a longstanding artist-in-residence at Firesign Farm (2016-2021) and mentored by farmer Ruth Ehman. Ruth Burke is currently an Assistant Professor of Video Art in the Wonsook Kim College of Fine Arts, School of Art at Illinois State University. She recently received the University-level Creative Arts Initiative Award, which recognizes scholars with exceptional promise early in their careers.
Ruth owns and runs DAP STUDIOS, an LLC through which her and her animals are available for hire for public artworks, small scale agricultural cultivation, and presence at events.
Ruth serves on the Board of Directors of the Midwest Ox Drovers Association.
research interests:
- interspecies relationships and performance
- Interspecies work (Jocelyne Porcher)
- pragmatic ecofeminism (Erin McKenna)
- multi-sensory thinking (Temple Grandin)
- relational antagonism/relational aesthetics (Claire Bishop/Nicolas Bourriaud)
- human-animal studies, human-animal bond, animal cognition
- phenomenology and technology (sound, moving image, responsive environments)
- chosen family: queer and animal kin (Donna Haraway)
- various methods of mediating interspecies relationships & multispecies ethnography
- small-scale agriculture & livestock farming, animal powered agriculture
- site-specific art making
- colonial/indigenous relationships to farm animals
- social practice/socially engaged art/community building through art practice
Photo by Jesse Meria.