Jen DeNike is an artist and director reading for a DPhil at The Ruskin School of Art and St John’s College, University of Oxford. Her research is generously funded by an AHRC Open-Oxford-Cambridge Studentship Doctoral Award and St John’s College Scholarship.
DeNike’s practice led DPhil research project Weightless Memory utilizes creative filmmaking as a phenomenological form of feminist queer visual mapping to reframe gendered intersectionality in space exploration and space research. Additionally, the research addresses the strength of historical archives as vital spatial temporal materiality to explore past legacies of space history as a pivot for the evolving role of women in the gendered politics of space related communities. The research asks how the embedded corporeality of female bodies as a platform of intervention can contribute to the embodiment and construction of female empowerment.
Jen’s film Prelude, (2025) was an official selection for MoMA Doc Fortnight Nonfiction and Media Festival at The Museum of Modern Art. DeNike has exhibited her work internationally including; MoMA PS1, Brooklyn Museum, Bronx Museum, Participant Inc, EMPAC New York, Crystal Bridges Museum, Houston Museum of Contemporary Art, Contemporary Arts Center New Orleans, Miami Light Project, The Bunker, Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts Los Angeles, MOCA Toronto, 54th Venice Biennale, MACRO Rome, MEF Museo Ettore Fico, Pan | Palazzo delle Arti Napoli, Palais de Tokyo, Tensta Konsthall Sweden, Zendai Museum of Modern Art Shanghai, KW Berlin, Julia Stoschek Foundation, Deichtorhallen Hamburg, Kunstlerhaus Stuttgart and Schauspiel Köln. Recent art commissions include Creative Scotland and Art Fund in collaboration with 16N St Glasgow. Her work has been reviewed in The New York Times, LA Times, Wall Street Journal, NY Magazine, Monopol Magazin, art Magazin, Hyperallergic, Artillery Magazine, ArtReview, Flash Art, and The Guardian. DeNike’s work is in the permanent collection of The Museum of Modern Art, Insititute of Contemporary Art Miami, Birmingham Museum of Art, and Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College.
Her DPhil research is under the supervision of Daria Martin and Anthony Gardner. Along with her AHRC and St John’s College Scholarship DeNike has received additional funding awards including Performance Hub Research Award, Torch | The Oxford Research Centre in The Humanities (2025), Expanding Horizon Programme Grant (2025), St John’s College, Promotion for the Arts Grant, St John’s College (2025). She holds an MFA from Bard College, where she also completed an additional Master Class in Photography with Stephen Shore. She has been an Adjunct Professor at NYU, CUNY, and Manhattan College, and an invited artist and lecturer at Columbia University, Parsons, SVA, Yale University, Tyler School of Art and Architecture, CalArts, Nova Scotia School of Art and Design, Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, Royal College of Art, and Glasgow School of Art. Recent appointments include Mentor of Fine Arts, Exeter College, WEPO Mentor of Fine Art, and Retained Lecturer for Exeter College, University of Oxford.
