Jennifer Lauren Smith (b. Portland, Maine) is a sculptor working in performance and lens-based mediums. Deaf since late childhood, her work often explores her interest in music: the physicality of listening, the implied musicality of movement, catharsis, presence and absence are recurring themes in her films and objects. Through an archival and observational working process, Smith articulates imagined soundscapes and cacophonic fictions that emerge when a visual realm is voided of auditory material. She engages an interest in landscape and history, using sound as a tool to communicate about the presence or feel of a place or life situation.

Smith received her MFA in Sculpture + Extended Media from Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, VA in 2011 and her BA from Reed College in 2002. She has been the recipient of several residencies and awards such as the Toby Devon Lewis Scholarship, the Hermitage Artist’s Retreat, 7 Below Arts Initiative, and Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts.

Under the curatorial moniker, P/H/A/O/N, she organizes exhibitions of time-based work outside traditional performance or cinematic contexts.