Claudia X. Valdes (born Santiago, Chile) is a maverick polymath who excels across divergent disciplines/fields of expertise. Most known for her artwork as a conceptually motivated visual artist and as a university academic in emerging media (art-sci-tech), she has also held roles as an institutional leader, a DEI policy maker, a philosophical-theoretical scholar, and a court mediator. Far outside of those boxes, once upon a time Valdes also wore the hats of an equity stock-trader, portfolio analyst, web designer, a semi-professional dancer, and a musician. In sum, Valdes is agile and undaunted. Intellectually restless, she continuously scans for challenge-opportunities in herself and in the world.

Within her creative oeuvre, major strategies have been to posit art as a means to catalyze and frame social spaces for meaningful discourse…to evoke reflection upon the ethics of human decision-making/actions and the impact of this on individual and collective life.

Valdes has exhibited internationally, across four continents, including at the ICA, London; MCA, Chicago; WRO Center for Media Art, Poland; Armory Center for the Arts, CA; Mills College Art Museum, CA; UCR/California Museum of Photography; Centro Multimedia/Centro National de las Artes, Mexico; Werkstätten und Kulturhaus, Austria; National Centre for Contemporary Art in Moscow, Russia; San Jose ICA, CA; Seattle Art Museum, WA; Charles B. Wang Center, SUNY Stony Brook; Exit Art, NY; Bauhaus-Universität, Germany; San Francisco Art Institute/Walter McBean Gallery; Instituto Chileno Norteamericano, Chile; SITE Santa Fe, NM; and the Corcoran Gallery of Art/College of Art + Design, Washington DC.

As a former academic, Valdes developed and taught digital media art courses at UC Berkeley, the Center for Digital Arts and Experimental Media (DXARTS) at the University of Washington, at UC Santa Cruz, the University of New Mexico, and at Mills College and Stanford University as a Visiting Artist. At the University of New Mexico (UNM) (2006-2018), she served as tenured Associate Professor in the Department of Art leading the advanced curricula in emerging technologies for EAT (Experimental Art + Technology), produced internationally-awarded students, and initiated and founded the Textile-Technology Lab. Between 2019-2020, she served as ‘Expert in the Field’ on MFA thesis committees.

As a former university administrator, she led as the Associate Director of the interdisciplinary ARTS Lab (the Art, Research, Technology, and Science Laboratory) and as the Associate Director of the College of Fine Arts’ ATC  (Art Technology Center). While founding Chair of the College of Fine Arts diversity committee,  she initiated and led diversity, equity, inclusion (DEI) efforts for systems change within the College + University levels (PI of coauthored DEI white paper), and served on university President + Provost committees and Task Forces. Her legacy with this particular effort is the complete restructuring of the university to establish DEI dean-level leadership positions in each UNM school/college.

Bolstering her research and change-making leadership, Valdes holds formal training and certificates in both Basic Mediation and Family Mediation. She supported peaceable conflict resolution within two New Mexico court systems as a volunteer English and Spanish-translating mediator.

Currently, Claudia X. Valdes is researching new concepts for visual and literary works in development.

COLLABORATORS :: PAST & PRESENT

WILLIAM FOWLER COLLINS
Musician

PHILLIP THURTLE
Historian and Philosopher of Science & Technology

CHRISTOPHER DOLDER
Dancer / Choreographer