About

Artist Bio  

Sarah Allen Eagen is a Canadian, New York City-based social practice artist whose work blurs boundaries between art, academia, and advocacy. She holds an MFA from Parsons School of Design and is recognized as an individual with extraordinary ability in the field of social practice art for her impactful contribution towards art as a tool for positive social change (O1-B Visa 2015). She has exhibited her artwork extensively at galleries in the United States and Canada, and has been featured at three international art fairs including Code Art Fair Denmark (2018), Art Toronto (2017), and Nuit Blanche (2011). She has had four solo exhibitions in New York (2015, 2018) and has participated in group exhibitions at The Kitchen (2013), Propeller Centre for the Visual Arts (2011), and The Art Gallery of Ontario (2005).  

As a social practice artist, Eagen activates art and technology as tools for positive social change focused on diversity and inclusion, social innovation, violence prevention, and sustainability. Drawing from experience in academia and activism, Eagen’s social practice interventions are anchored in data, drive measurable impact and document results in peer-reviewed publications. She co-created a participatory art installation that garnered national attention for its innovative use of technology to promote diversity and inclusion for Nuit Blanche (2011) and documented the results in three conference papers (2013, 2014). Her work on violence prevention includes founding the IANSA international youth network (2006), participating in two United Nations Review Conferences (2006, 2012), and co-authoring three book chapters on the subject (2012, 2014, 2017). Her work on sustainability includes participating in the United Nations Global Leader Summit (2017) and leading design thinking sprints to address the United Nations’ Sustainable Development goals at EDIT Expo for Design, Innovation, and Technology (2017). Her project to promote a sustainable future won 5th place out of 3,000 teams for the Challenge Future Global Youth Think Tank Competition for using “radical inclusiveness and open innovation” (2011). She is also an active member of Post Digital Intimacies and the Networked Public-Private, a global network of experts in the fields of digital culture exploring the impact of new technologies on the future of intimacy (2020).

Artist Statement

My artwork examines contemporary notions of identity, obsession, and intimacy in the digital age. Inspired by the vulnerable and alienating aspects of the digitization of society, my work explores interpersonal relationships in the twenty-first century, where intimacy is often replaced with immediacy.