BIO
Tia Kramer (b. 1980) is an interdisciplinary artist and social choreographer who creates collective experiences that disrupt the everyday, engaging participants in embodied poetry and radical imagination. Her artworks manifest as socially engaged projects and performances rooted in public art, creative pedagogy, oral history, dance, and social action.
In her past collaborative projects, Tia created a performance for one person–her mail carrier, Phil–which unfolded along his mail route with the collaborative participation of 87 residents; she choreographed an entire school–280 students and staff–into a river physically moving through the school campus to pass through all the phases of the water cycle; and she devised participatory performance in which 100 people, most strangers, were guided by text messages directing them through acts of connection with each other and with the satellites orbiting overhead.
Currently, Tia and her collaborator Amanda Leigh Evans (together known as DeepTime Collective) are developing When The River Becomes a Cloud (2021-present), a collaborative public artwork generated through their long-term Artist-in-Residence at Prescott School (PreK-12). DeepTime Collective also launched A Day Without a Clock (2023-2024), an immersive art experience and exhibition produced during their one year Artists-in-Residence at the Everson Museum in Syracuse, NY.
Tia is also co-founder and Director of the Walla Walla Immigrant Rights Coalition's Colectivo de Arte Social (2018-present), which initiates bold creative projects like The Listeners Project: Queremos Escucharte to share unheard stories from the Walla Walla Valley.
Tia Kramer attended Macalester College and has a Post Baccalaureate in Fiber + Material Studies from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and an MFA in Art + Social Practice from Portland State University. She has engaged in projects at venues including the Seattle Art Museum Olympic Sculpture Park, Everson Museum of Art, Henry Art Gallery, Bellevue Art Museum, MadArt Seattle, Harper Joy Theatre, Georgetown Steam Plant, and her beloved Prescott School District. Her work has been supported by multiple National Endowment for the Arts Grants for Artist Projects, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Artist Trust, 4Culture, Inatai Foundation, Washington State Library, and others. She also currently a Research Associate at Whitman College.
Originally from rural Iowa, Tia is now rooted in Walla Walla, Washington. She finds delight in asking questions, entering into her kids’ imaginary worlds, and being with her Loves.
View full CV here