Kiera L. Faber

(American, b. 1974; resides in Saint Joseph, MN)

Approximately 19,000 photographs comprise Kiera Faber’s eleven-minute long stop-motion animation Living Organics (2009). Using carefully constructed sets, dolls, dried plants, and taxidermied birds and bees, Faber created a surreal world reminiscent of animations by Czech artist Jan Svankmajer, in which appearances are deceiving and anything can come to life. In conjunction with Living Organics, Faber created 09.01.29 (2009), a photographic series depicting many of the same characters and using the same materials as her short film, but which are not film stills. On the relationship between her stop-motion animation and her photographic series, Faber states:

I am interested in the dialogue between the photograph as a still image and the photograph as a transient frame in time-based media. Film is ephemeral: various pertinent fragments get stored away in our visual memory, while other components are discarded, creating the possibility for a false memory or re-adaptation of the original narrative. Still photography is time-locked: it exists in the singular, standing as a testament for happenings.

Living Organics was screened at the George Eastman House Museum of Photography and nominated for best domestic animation at the Queens International Film Festival (2009). Together with 09.01.29, it was the subject of a solo exhibition at the Gage Family Art Gallery, Augsburg College, Minneapolis (2010).

Kiera Faber works in the media of film, photography, and drawing. She completed an MFA at the Visual Studies Workshop, Brockport State University of New York (2007). Faber’s films have been screened nationally and internationally, including in Greece, Armenia, Brazil, New Zealand, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Nevada, and New York. Currently she is on faculty at St. Cloud State University, Minnesota.