Lara Allen
Adjunct Assistant Professor; SCPS Lecturer; Tutor
Biography
Lara Allen is an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Humanities and Media Studies department and a tutor at the Writing Tutorial Center. In 2018, she began teaching undergraduate and graduate students in Pratt’s Intensive English Program (IEP). In 2023, she was appointed Academic Coordinator of the IEP. Before joining Pratt, she taught performance at Bruce High Quality Foundation University – a free, collaborative art school in New York City.
She is an interdisciplinary artist with roots in experimental music. Her current solo work under the name Sailor Beware combines sound collage, spoken word, illustration and vaudeville in a kaleidoscopic portrayal of coming of age in institutions that characterize “the troubled-teen industry.” Her writing is informed by Bakhtin’s theory of heteroglossia, post-punk, and underground comics. Research on adolescent mental health, institutional abuse and techniques of control are essential to this work.
Performance venues, exhibitions and collections include Artists Space, NYC, NY; Brooklyn Museum, NY; Café Korb, Vienna, Austria; Museo de Bellas Artes, Havana, Cuba; SFMOMA, CA; Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, OH; Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland, OH; Galerija Miroslav Kraljevic, Zagreb, Croatia; The Queens Museum, NY; Yale University, New Haven, CT; City Hall, San Francisco, CA; Berkeley Art Museum, Berkeley, CA; and Eastern State Penitentiary, Philadelphia, PA; grants and awards include Manhattan Cultural Council SwingSpace, Brooklyn Arts Council Grant, Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant, Abby Mural Fellowship and Embassy CES National Teaching and Learning Award.
Education
MFA Yale University School of Art, Painting & Printmaking;
CELTA University of Cambridge;
BFA San Francisco Art Institute, Interdisciplinary
Publications and Projects
“And All Around Me Spirits: Invoking Harry Partch”
“Who Cares Anyway: Post-Punk San Francisco and the End of the Analog Age.”
“Painters on Painting: Lara Allen on Anselm Kiefer’s ‘Die Ordnung der Engel'”
Select Reviews:
Davis, Genie. “From Trauma to Transcendence in The Naked Mind.” Riot Material , 9 Jan. 2021