Department of Media Culture, College of Staten Island/CUNY

Tara Mateik

Assistant Professor
Center for the Arts (1P) room 224F
Telephone: (718) 982-2370
Tara.mateik (at) csi.cuny.edu

B.A.: Hampshire College, Amherst, Massachusetts ; Video
M.F.A.: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy NY; Integrated Electronic Arts

Undergraduate Courses: Introduction to Video, Introduction to TV Studio, Advanced TV Studio, Media Workshop: Acting, Directing, and Producing for the Media, Media Internship

In his videos, performances, and assemblage, Mateik casts himself as myriad theoretical and cultural transvestites from media culture, competitive sport, and weird science. His practice includes regular participation in a collaborative process that fosters transfeminism—an inclusive feminism that integrates the lived experience of genderqueer people and extends important feminist concerns beyond the limits of rigidly defined conceptions of gender.

Mateik's work has been exhibited at international venues including MOMA PS1 Greater New York Cinema, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Dia at the Hispanic Society, Dixon Place, Roebling Hall, and Reena Spaulings in New York; Outfest and LACE, Los Angeles, CA; Aurora Pictures, Houston, TX; Oberhausen Short Film Festival, Germany; and The Images Festival, and Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, Toronto, Canada. His videos are distributed by the Video Data Bank.

In addition to his own work he has collaborated with collectives and artists including Paper Tiger Television video collective, (1997-2001) and Sylvia Rivera Law Project (2002-2003) to produce short videos that demystify and democratize the media. In 2002 he founded The Society of Biological Insurgents (SBI), an embryonic cell organization that wages strategic operations to overthrow institutions of compulsory gender. From 2005-2009, he was the Education Manager for Art in General's Education Department, integrating contemporary art practice with existing curriculum as part of a public school arts in education program. His awards include a grant from the Creative Capital Foundation in film/video and an Electronic and Film Art Grant from the Experimental Television Center.