Mark Dion was born in New Bedford, Massachusetts in 1961. He received a BFA (1986) and an honorary doctorate (2003) from the University of Hartford School of Art, Connecticut. Dion's work examines the ways in which dominant ideologies and public institutions shape our understanding of history, knowledge, and the natural world. The job of the artist, he says, is to go against the grain of dominant culture, to challenge perception and convention.

Appropriating archaeological and other scientific methods of collecting, ordering, and exhibiting objects, Dion creates works that question the distinctions between objective (rational) scientific methods and subjective (irrational) influences. The artist's spectacular and often fantastical curiosity cabinets, modeled on Wunderkabinetts of the 16th Century, exalt atypical orderings of objects and specimens. By locating the roots of environmental politics and public policy in the construction of knowledge about nature, Mark Dion questions the authoritative role of the scientific voice in contemporary society.

He has received numerous awards, including the ninth annual Larry Aldrich Foundation Award (2001). He has had major exhibitions at the Miami Art Museum (2006); Museum of Modern Art, New York (2004); Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Ridgefield, Connecticut (2003); and Tate Gallery, London (1999). Neukom Vivarium (2006), a permanent outdoor installation and learning lab for the Olympic Sculpture Park, was commissioned by the Seattle Art Museum. Dion lives and works in Pennsylvania.

J. Morgan Puett was born in Hahira, Georgia in 1957. She Received her MFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Puett is a trans-disciplinary project artist/cultural producer who has been strategically rearranging intersections of architecture and the fashion system through history, biology, economics, and social practices. Morgan’s early work forged new territory by intervening into the fashion system with a series of conceptual store/installation/clothing projects in the 80’s and 90’s. Her work has been most innovative in the public realm of social practices. She was the 2004 recipient of Anonymous Was A Woman Award and other awards such as the PEW Charitable Trust in Philadelphia and most recently awarded the 2009 Smithsonian Institution Artist Research Fellowship and the Bridge Residency at Headlands Center for the Arts, Fall 2009.

She exhibits, lectures and teaches extensively in venues which have included The Serpentine Gallery & Victoria and Albert Museum, London; WaveHill, Bronx , NYC; Spoleto, USA, Charleston, S.C., (2002); American Fine Arts Co., NYC (2004); The Fabric Workshop and Museum of Philadelphia (2003-4); ARTEX, Arnheim, Netherlands (2004); University of Venice, Italy (2005); Mass MoCA, Ma. (2004); The School of the Art Institute of Chicago; Her work is in the Tate Modern, Fabric Workshop and Museum of Philadelphia, and Philadelphia Museum of Art. Collaborations include Mark Dion, Suzanne Bocanegra, Iain Kerr, David Lang, Lucy Orta and others Puett is represented by Alexander Gray Associates in NYC and currently is living and working in NYC and Pennsylvania on the Mildred’s Lane Project (Co-founder/Director).

www.jmorganpuett.com