Biography
About
Ben Wood is a public video artist based in San Francisco. Over the past 20 years, he has developed a deeply personal visual art practice, primarily in San Francisco, that retrieves histories from the fabric of cultural and personal resources, ranging from the buildings we inhabit to the documents and stories that can be reclaimed through generations. This is a documentary based, site specific visual practice, that strives to create a bond of community through sharing these histories specific to people and place.
In his work he uses contemporary media to animate public spaces with images of their unrecognized history, and exposing how histories of forgotten communities may be visually reintroduced into the physical landscape of the present. His career-long interest remains the hidden and ignored histories that lie dormant within buildings in our community. He has created over 20 projected video installations, onto buildings and monuments, using contemporary media to animate them with projected video artworks.
Wood is known for large-scale displays in San Francisco on Coit Tower, Dewey Monument, Haas-Lilienthal House Museum, Temple Emanuel, Saint Ignatius Church, within Mission Dolores, the Cliff House and at the East-West Center in Honolulu, the Museo Nacional de Arte in Mexico City and the London Jewish Museum.
Wood was born in the United Kingdom and is a naturalized American citizen having lived in United States since he was
19 years old. He is middle of a set of triplets, with both identical and fraternal brothers. Wood received a Master of Science in Visual Studies from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a Bachelor of Fine Art in Digital Media from the San Francisco Art Institute. He maintains his own visual art practice and also works for the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy.
