Angela Washko


Angela Washko is an American new media artist and facilitator, based in New York. She mobilizes communities and creates new forums for discussions of feminism where they do not exist. She is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor of Art at Carnegie Mellon University.
Washko has been creating performances inside the online video game World of Warcraft since 2012 in which she initiates discussions about feminism within the gameplay. She's the founder of the Council on Gender Sensitivity and Behavioral Awareness in World of Warcraft to bring attention to and protest the sexist language from players in the game.
Since 2015, Washko has been carrying out an ongoing project focused on noted pick-up artist Roosh V, called Banged.

Work

In 2014, Creative Time commissioned an essay from Washko on her findings as the self-founded Council on Gender Sensitivity and Behavioral Awareness in World of Warcraft.
She is the first person to ever sell a Vine video, which was bought by Dutch art advisor, curator and collector Myriam Vanneschi for $200 at the Moving Image Art Fair. "Tits on Tits on Ikea", the title of Washko's sold Vine, was an extension to a Vine she submitted to the #VeryShortFilmFest, which was selected as a runner-up in a project called "The Shortest Video Art Ever Sold," curated by Marina Galperina and Kyle Chayka.
Her video work "Chastity" won the Terminal Award from the Center of Excellence in the Creative Arts at Austin Peay State University. She was the 2013 to 2014 Recipient of the Franklin Furnace Fund Grant for her World of Warcraft performances. In 2020, she was awarded the Creative Capital Award.
In 2018, she exhibited her new work "The Game: The Game" at the Museum of the Moving Image. The Game: The Game takes the form of a dating simulator, pitting you against six men who are aggressively vying for your attention at a bar. "The Game: The Game" additionally won the 2018 Impact Award at Indiecade.

Art practice

Washko's interdisciplinary practice of performance, video, and installation investigates public opinion regarding proper etiquette, appropriate lifestyle choices, limited gender designations. She works in mostly online public spaces of contemporary American culture in order to reach a larger audience with a feminist discourse. Her work has been exhibited by the Museum of the Moving Image in the National #Selfie Portrait Gallery, Biennial of the Americas in The World is !Flat, Denver Digerati in Denver, Colorado, Transfer Gallery in Brooklyn, New York, and Super Art Moderne Museum: Spamm.
She was a contributing writer for Animal NY.

Curatorial and related activities

Washko has organized exhibitions and programs at the University of California, San Diego, New York University, Flux Factory, and Temple University's Tyler School of Art. She curates and compiles A Feminist Art Movement Online, an archive of artists, writers, curators, and cultural producers with various practices addressing issues regarding gendered experiences. These practitioners primarily make and/or distribute their work online and contribute to a shift in making the internet a more inclusive space for women and their cultural work. She was the Department Events Coordinator of Vis Arts at the University of California, San Diego until 2015. She has written for dpi Magazine. In 2013 she hosted the podcast "A Cups" with new media artist Ann Hirsch, made possible by the Radiohive collective in which they interviewed guests such as Nate Hill, Carla Gannis, Chris Gethard, and Genevieve Belleveau. In 2017, she curated the exhibition "Hacking/Modding/Remixing as Feminist Protest" at the Miller Gallery at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA.

Education

Washko graduated in 2009 from Tyler School of Art of Temple University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting/Drawing/Sculpture. She studied at the Post Graduate Apprentice Program at The Fabric Workshop and Museum in 2009. She graduated in 2015 with a Master of Fine Arts in Visual Art from the University of California, San Diego.

Exhibitions

2015
2016
2017