biography
Charity Be creates installation environments and social sculptures that provoke the senses. Drawing upon philosophical texts and responding to the cycles of nature, Be works contextually and often site-specifically through a changing combination of video, sound, textiles, gesture and things. Often there is a counter-relationship present in her materials such as organic and plastic; handcraft and machine.
Making sense of these bodies we inhabit and the environments in which we interact and experience through these bodies is central to what it is to be human. Our individual and collective experiences are sculpted by not only circumstance, but also attitudes and beliefs. The human experience, however, is not the only experience, and nor is it shaped solely by interactions with other humans, but rather all other bodies—elemental, floral, faunal, etc. How we smell, taste, touch, hear and see the our Umwelt becomes the basis of how we connect, understand and remember. Be’s practice begins at the intersection of these parameters.
Be has a professional background in film and television, as well as in sound and movement arts. She also spent many years learning and practicing permaculture-influenced urban farming while working in tech-dependent professions.
Charity Be has worked and exhibited internationally. Be has also participated in international arts residencies. She holds a BFA in Intermedia Art from Mills College, Oakland, California (2017) and an MFA from Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Boston, Massachusetts (2022). Hailing originally from Chicago, Illinois, Be is a modern nomad who lived in California for many years and now is based full-time in Berlin, Germany.
See also, Now, A Manifesto