Photograph by Valaurian Waller.
|bio
A 2023 recipient of an Arts Writers Grant from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Detroit native Lillien Waller is the creator and producer of platforms exploring art practice and the creative impulse, including Watch Me Work (2016–2021), an award-winning digital video and profile series showcasing practitioners at the College for Creative Studies. In collaboration with Kresge Arts in Detroit, she wrote Practice (2022–2023), an essay series meditating on art and method across disciplines.
Lillien has shown her own interdisciplinary artwork as part of the group show Parallel Visions at Wasserman Projects (One Practice, 2019) and as part of Wayne State University Galleries’ public art series, In the Air II (Face, Off billboard installation, 2021).
A writer and editor, Lillien holds a BA in English from University of Michigan, an MFA in poetry from Sarah Lawrence College, and master’s degrees from New School for Social Research and Emory University. Her poems have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best New Poets. She conceived and edited American Ghost: Poets on Life after Industry, an anthology of poetry, hybrid writing and photo essays examining the toll of de-industrialization on community, culture, identity and the natural world.
Lillien has written on a range of topics and has profiled dozens of artists, makers and scholars. She is the recipient of a Cave Canem Fellowship and a Kresge Artist Fellowship in the Literary Arts.
|EDUCATION
2008 MA, Culture, History, Theory. Concentration: Modernist Aesthetics. Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia. Taught visual culture for undergraduates, focusing on global modernism in art, photography and film.
2005 MA, Liberal Studies. Concentration: Intellectual History. The Graduate Faculty in Political and Social Science, New School for Social Research, New York, New York
1995 MFA, Writing. Concentration: Poetry. Sarah Lawrence College, Bronxville, New York
1988 BA, English Literature. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan
|selected PUBLICATIONS: prose & poetry
2022/2023 practice: essays. Meditations on art, artists and creative practice at Kresge Arts in Detroit Presents. Featuring Cynthia Greig, Tommye Blount and Neha Vedpathak
2015 “Where Commuters Run Over Black Children, 1971” and “Glass,” Kresge Arts in Detroit
2014 “Detroit Convo,” conversation on the city, gentrification and artistic practice with mother-daughter poets Esperanza and Lena Cintrón in Visions of a Post-Apocalyptic Sunrise: Detroit Poems by Esperanza Cintrón, Stockport Flats
2013 “Daddy Came Home to the War” in New Orleans Review
2012 “Scarecrow” (with audio) in Guernica: A Magazine of Art & Politics
2011 American Ghost: Poets on Life after Industry (ed.), Stockport Flats: Witness Post Series. Poetry collection examining deindustrialization featuring nine poets. Includes the poems “Bounty,” “Brother,” and “Eulogy” and the essay/introduction, “‘The Answer is Not One, But Also Not Two’: Ghosts, Gods and Humane Sustainability”
|exhibitions
2021 “Face, Off (Noire et Blanche),” billboard installation for the public art series In The Air II: Voices from Detroit and Beyond, September 28–October 15, curated by Tyanna Buie at Elaine L. Jacob Gallery, Wayne State University, Detroit
2019 “One Practice,” poem/installation for Parallel Visions, July 12–August 24, curated by Alison Wong at Wasserman Projects, Detroit
|HONORS & AWARDS
2023 Arts Writers Grant, Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts
2015 Kresge Artist Fellowship in the Literary Arts, Kresge Foundation [Kresge Arts in Detroit]
2013 Nomination, Best New Poets for “Scarecrow”
2012 Best of Guernica Magazine
2001 Poetry Fellowship, Cave Canem Foundation
1999 Nomination, Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Presses for “Swoon”
|selected lectures |featured readings |CONFERENCES |WORKSHOPS
2023 Panelist, Roundtable / Virtual Launch for Among the Neighbors (pamphlet series), Vols. 21, 22, 23, March 10 at 4:00pm EST. Vol. 22 documents and celebrates SEEDS: The Biannual Literary Journal of the Sisters of Color (SOC, 1990–2000), which resides in The Poetry Collection of the University Libraries at University of Buffalo.
2021 Kresge Artist Fellow Lecture, “Face, Off (Noire et Blanche),” In the Air II Lecture Series, October 6, Elaine L. Jacob Gallery, Wayne State University (virtual)
2014 Featured Poet, “Small Press Reading: Bear Star, Book Thug, Flim Forum and Stockport Flats,” Jewelbox Theater, Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) Conference & Book Fair, Seattle
2013 Featured Poet, “An Evening with Broadside Press,” Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, Detroit
2010 Contributor, Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, Middlebury College, Vermont
2010 Contributor, Master Class, selected and taught by Tracy K. Smith, Unterberg Poetry Center, 92nd Street Y, New York City
2009 Featured Poet, Book launch for Building Codes by Belle Gironda, Five Myles Gallery, Brooklyn
2003 Panelist, with Lucille Clifton and Sekou Sundiata, “Poetry Behind the Veil: 21st-Century Interpretations of Double Consciousness,” The City College of New York Langston Hughes Festival, New York City