Artist in Residence, Research Fellow | 2020
Jacob Meders is a member of the Mechoopda Indian Tribe of Chico Rancheria, California. He presently lives in Phoenix, Arizona. Jacob possesses a BFA in painting with a minor in printmaking from Savannah College of Art and Design and a MFA in printmaking at Arizona State University. In 2011 Jacob established WarBird Press, a fine art printmaking studio that he operates as the Master Printmaker in Phoenix, AZ. Currently Jacob also is an Assistant Professor in the New College of Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences at Arizona State University, Glendale, AZ.
Jacob’s work focuses on altered perceptions of place, culture, and identity built on the assimilation and homogenization of indigenous people. This work often ties into current issues faced in Indigenous communities. His work touches many interdisciplinary approaches and repeatedly plays with the boundaries of social engagement practices. His work continues to reexamine varied documentations of Native Americans through printing processes that hold onto stereotypical ideas and how they have affected the culture of the native people. Often using book forms and prints as a symbol of western knowledge and the linear mind, Jacob deploys them as a vehicle to challenge new perceptions of Native Americans.
And finally, Jacob is recognized as an influential public speaker and has traveled nationally and internationally to speak on topics within the indigenous contemporary art world.