Marisa Morán Jahn also known as Marisa Jahn is an American multimedia artist, writer, and educator based in New York City. She is a co-founder and president of Studio REV-, a nonprofit arts organization that creates public art and creative media to impact the lives of low-wage workers, immigrants, youth, and women. She teaches at Massachusetts Institute of Technology as a lecturer, Teachers College of Columbia University, and The New School. Jahn has edited three books about art and politics.
Her work integrates storytelling, visual art, performance, writing, and film. Some of her more notable art projects have included the literacy project El Bibliobandido in which she created workshops and video with a village in El PitalHonduras, the multi-part project of experimental videos on the black market called Video Slink Uganda, Contratados which is a website to help migrant workers review worksites, NannyVan the public art project, mobile app, and phone hotline and the public art project, web series and mobile studio called CareForce which addresses issues faced by domestic workers.
''El Bibliobandido'' (2010 – ongoing)
El Bibliobandido is an ongoing literacy and public art project that centers around a masked bandit that eats stories, terrorizing little kids until they offer stories they've written. Initiated in El Pital Honduras, a village in the jungles of northwest Honduras where rural illiteracy rates average 80%, the community has continued Bibliobandido workshops every month, inventing new characters and episodes with nineteen participating villages. Jahn has brought the story-eating villain to other venues in North America including the Pérez Art Museum Miami, 'Caribbean' at the Studio Museum of Harlem, the Stamps Gallery at the Penny W. Stamps School of Art & Design in Ann Arbor, and the Seattle Public Library who hosts Bibliobandido-themed trainings to librarians citywide.
''CareForce'' (2017 – 2018)
The CareForce is a public art project, PBS docu-series co-produced with Oscar and Emmy-winning filmmaker Yael Melamede, and two mobile studios — the NannyVan and the CareForce One — amplifying the voices of America's fastest growing workforce, caregivers. Created in partnership with advocates like MacArthur Fellow Ai-jen Poo and immigrant women who form the 10,000-strong membership of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, the CareForce uses art, film, participatory dance, and know-your-rights designs to build a movement while informing nannies, housekeepers, caregivers, and their employers about the changing laws. The project is made accessible to workers in public spaces, transit stops, worker centers, and presented to allies and domestic employers at cultural venues such as the Brooklyn Museum, Pérez Art Museum, Open Engagement, and more.
''Video Slink Uganda'' (2013)
In 2013, Jahn collaborated with media ethnographer Paul Falzone and a team of East African video jockeys to create Video Slink Uganda, a Creative Capital and Apexart-supported project that involves slipping or "slinking" experimental films by diasporan artists onto commercially pirated DVDs. Dubbed by local translators then circulated within Uganda's bootleg cinemas, these slinked videos play as previews to the main film and were seen by millions of viewers.
''New Day, New Standard'' (2012)
In 2012, Studio REV- and Jahn led a collaboration with Domestic Workers United and members from MIT's Center for Civic Media including Sasha Costanza-Chock to create a know-your-rights audionovela app called New Day, New Standard that informs New York-based nannies, housekeepers, and caregivers about their rights under the 2010 landmark Domestic Workers Bill of Rights. Recognized by CNN as one of "five apps to change the world", Jahn presented the project at various venues including the Museum of Modern Art and White House.
Curating
With artist and designer Steve Shada, together they founded on New Year's Eve of 1999 a San Francisco-based storefront called "Pond: Art, Activism, and Ideas" located in the Mission District. They held 33 exhibitions at Pond and 3 public art projects showcased the work of hundreds of artists including Amy Franceschini/Futurefarmers, Marisa Olson, Judi Werthein, Gregory Sholette, Harrell Fletcher, Lize Mogel, Noam Toran, Robby Herbst, Packard Jennings, Steve Lambert, Sarah Oppenheimer, and more. In 2003, Pond produced Natalie Jeremijenko's OneTrees project that involved planting pairs of genetically-identical trees in 16 microclimates throughout San Francisco. In 2009 she co-founded Studio REV- with Stephanie Rothenberg and Rachel McIntire, a non-profit organization that co-designs public art and creative media with low-wage workers, immigrants, women, and youth.
