Anna Ialeggio

Before COA

I’ve been a working artist since c. 2007, staging exhibitions and performances as both an individual artist and collective member (The Soil Factory, Miss Rockaway Armada, KCHUNG Radio, Monday Nite Weirdos).

• Teaching Associate, UC Irvine, Irvine CA (2017-2019)
• 
  Assistant Professor of Studio Art at Wells College, Ithaca, NY (2021–24)
• 
  Visiting Critic, Art Department, Cornell University, Ithaca NY (2025)

Website

www.aialeggio.net

Course Areas

Ceramics, sculpture, mixed media, performance art

• MFA, Studio Art with Graduate Emphasis in Visual Studies, University of California, Irvine (2019)
  
• Natural Building Certificate, Yestermorrow Design/Build School (2012)
• 
  BA, Studio Art (Ceramics, Printmaking), East Asian Studies, Oberlin College (2005)
  
• Studio Art Certificate, Kansai Gaidai University (Ceramics), Hirakata-shi, Japan (2004)
  

My artwork and teaching practice are intimately linked. Working in sculpture, ceramics, performance, drawing, text, and media to explore overlaps between ecology, social protocol, and narrative structure, I’m exploring the perception of change that occurs as each generation redefines for itself what is considered “natural” or “normal.” Marine fisheries scientist Daniel Pauly coined the term shifting baselines syndrome for this phenomenon in order to describe the difficulty of using individual human perception of change as the basis for conservation policy. I extend this idea as a poetic and ethical framework for art-making; it leads me to social and class analysis as well as absurdist humor. Recurring material themes include liminality, fragility, improvisation, and play; rupture and lightly bounded space; polish addressed to a provisional gesture; joyful queering of a matter or a tactic; discarded objects and refuse; collectivism as professional practice.

I love interdisciplinary collaboration, site-specific research, material play, and spending as much time as possible outside.

• “Fun That Is Or Isn’t Funny.” Unserious Ecocriticism: Humor, Wit, Play, and Environmental Destruction in North American Contemporary Art & Visual Culture. Ed. Maria Lux, Jessica Landau. Amherst College Press. (2026)
• Landing (Exhibition Catalog). Wells College Press. (2024)
• Disappearing Birds of North America. Ed. Jen Delos Reyes. (2023)
• “The Second Field.” The New Farmers Almanac, Vol VI: Adjustments and Accommodations. Greenhorns Press. (2022)
• “CRANE & MAN.” Hold Our Breath 2040: Writers and Artists Reimagine Forestation. Ed. Heidi Staples. University of Alabama. (2021)
• “Themselves on their own terms.” Antiquated Future, Leaf Litter #8. (2020)
• “Featured Artist.” Los Angeles Review of Books, Summer #7. (2015)
• “The Van Dies.” Nowhere Magazine, June Issue. (2015)
• “Here ́s The Link For Editable Sharing.” PHONEBOOK 4, Threewalls Gallery w/ Common Field. (2015)
• “The Game of the Future.” INCITE! Journal of Experimental Media, BLOCKBUSTER Issue #5. (2014)