Rachel Rusk is an artist and researcher from Cincinnati,Ohio who earned her BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2018. Her work explores the intersection of traditional textile techniques, digital fabrication, and biofabrication, tracing material narratives that connect technology, belief, and place. Rusk has exhibited nationally and internationally, including at the Gregg Museum of Art, Esther Klein Gallery, Parsons School of Design, and Willem de Kooning Academy. She has presented her collaborative research at MoMA, New York City, and participated in panels hosted by the Biodesign Challenge and NC State University. Her writing and work appear in Art’s Work in the Age of Biotechnology and Grow the Future: Visions of Biodesign. A former resident within UNRVL THE CODE in Rotterdam, she was a finalist for the Biodesign Challenge Grand Prize and the PETA Prize for Animal-Free Wool.
Her practice traces an evolving bond with the lands she has resided on, the lives she has stewarded, and the storytelling reflected in the traditions of craft that she utilizes.