VALERIE MENDOZA

Valerie Mendoza is a lens-based installation artist, writer and educator. Her work mines the intersections between history, memory, media, cultural institutions, and language. Using photographs, video, audio, objects, personal narrative, and various forms of information, her work creates a cross-disciplinary dialogue between disparate sources in her ongoing effort to question dubious notions of reality. Her early work used scientific theories and terminology as metaphors for human behavior. Research for Mendoza's video series, Consumption, took her to Spain, France and Belgium in the early 2000's. She worked as part of an archeological team focused on Neanderthal belongings and remains in Sclayn, Belgium, 2002 for her video/installation division. From 2005 to 2006, she worked at the border of the U.S. and Mexico shooting footage for her video Different, naturally, to which she added elements of installation over the next few years.

Primary location: San Jose United States