Steve Shada's work explores natural and social systems as a means of engendering moments of intimacy, inquiry, and self-reflection. Ranging in practice from deeply personal to highly participatory, their work often relies on the collaborative authorship and distributive intelligence of surrounding people and situations. Shada and longtime collaborator Marisa Jahn write, “we are interested in the way that collective authorship shifts the production and interpretation of art towards an appreciation of process, context, and re-invention.”

Shada has presented and exhibited work internationally, most recently at Bay Area Now 4 (Yerba Buena Center’s San Francisco Bay Area Triennial), Vroom (Isanbul, Turkey), the Museum of Contemporary Art (North Miami), the San Francisco Commonwealth Club, New Langton Arts, Southern Exposure, The Moore Space, Southern Exposure (San Francisco), Mama (Zagreb, Croatia), University of California Berkeley, the Museum of Science (Boston), ISEA (San Jose), and more.

In 2000, Shada and Jahn co-founded Pond: art, activism, and ideas (www.mucketymuck.org), a non-profit organization dedicated to showcasing experimental art. Through international gallery exhibitions, special events, lecture series, and various public art projects, Pond has fostered an environment that presents critical artwork in an accessible environment. Recent projects include: ShopDropping: Experiments in the Aisle, an exhibition of reverse shoplifting (art inserted into public places of commerce); Invisible 5, an experimental audio tour of California’s I-5 Highway in collaboration with Amy Balkin, Tim Halbur, and Kim Stringfellow; OneTrees, an ongoing collaboration with Natalie Jeremijenko that involves the planting of pairs of genetically-identical trees throughout the Bay Area’s radically diverse microclimates; and Unfurled: A Public Exhibition of Flags, a public exhibition of flags that presents critical responses and alternatives to the political and cultural hegemony that the United States’ flag currently symbolizes. Their work as curators and artists has received international recognition in publications including Art in America, Frieze, Punk Planet, Metropolis, Clamor, Artweek, Cluster Italy, and more.

Shada, born 1976 in Sacramento, California, relocated in 2006 to New Orleans to contribute his skills as a volunteer with various grassroots nonprofit organizations involved in rebuilding communities most harshly affected by hurricane Katrina. Currently, Shada lives in New York and works on various curatorial and art projects including a campaign against the privatization of Union Square (see campaign against the Union Square Partnership for more info).