We had the good fortune of connecting with Tanja Geis and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Tanja, why did you decide to pursue a creative path?
For a long time, I tried to do everything but pursue an artistic career. I had so many jobs in industries that were adjacent to art-making: photography book publishing, galleries, advertising, and graphic novel publishing, but there was always something missing. Something vital inside was not getting fed, and I noticed that that feeling abated only when I was making work. In some essential way, I chose an artistic career for my mental well-being.

There is also another part to the answer. How we perceive, relate to, and steward the oceans and the coasts has always been a central concern of mine. I grew up in Hong Kong, surrounded by the ocean and immersed in a culture shaped by its proximity to it. I spent several years studying and working in Marine and Coastal Management and for a time I considered this for a career. What I discovered working as a facilitator and educator is that people rarely change their behavior based on facts and data. Behavior change is almost always a result of being moved, touched, or connected on an emotional and/or physical level, and this is where the arts excel. Realizing this, along with a knowledge that art-making nourishes me on a deeply personal level, I decided to recenter my life around developing an art practice that explores our relationship with the oceans and coasts.

Finally, I know that I am very privileged to have been able to make this choice. In our capitalist system, which devalues creative and artistic pursuits, not everyone is in an eco

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
Please tell us more about your art. My work investigates human-disturbed coastal and ocean environments to experiment with the idea that a deep acceptance of the impact we have had on the planet and its ecosystems might allow us to find some measure of grace, belonging, and kinship in these ruins of our creation. My projects arise in response to marginal ecosystems and/or the species that live there. My process always begins with extensive research and time spent physically engaging with the subject. The experiences, materials, artifacts, and imagery I collect in the field guide my creative trajectory and comprise the raw material for my work. My work is always in direct conversation and response to another living thing or system and often incorporates materials related to it. Many of my projects are visually seductive at first glance, but a closer look and/or understanding of the context rewards the audience with a perspective that is maybe less obviously appealing, or at least injects more nuance and complexity into the conversation. I hope that the work cracks open the possibility for new perspectives, and poses questions that don’t have easy answers.

What you are most proud of or excited about?
I just completed an installation, Mud Will Remember Us (2023), at The Guardhouse at Fort Mason in San Francisco, which I’m pleased with. Fort Mason is a decommissioned military fort that sits right on the edge of San Francisco Bay, and the organization For-Site has been selecting artists to use the fort’s guard station as a public art installation venue. Mud Will Remember Us proposes a speculative future in which the former military guard station lies submerged beneath rising oceans and has become home to new marine life forms adapted to and thriving in the polluted, warming, and acidifying ocean waters. For the installation, I collected local San Francisco Bay mud containing byproducts of human activity, including plastics, heavy metals, and chemicals, which I then formed by hand into hundreds of sculptures suggesting simple-bodied organisms from another time. These objects were then incorporated into a series of sixteen suspended rotating mobiles set against a fluorescent red background, playfully beckoning us to imagine this site beyond human memory.

How did you get to where you are today professionally?
It took till my thirties to commit to art-making as a career, yet I don’t regret the many experiences I’ve had along the way. So many of them have enriched my art practice on a very fundamental level. I had to unlearn a lot of internalized societal and familial beliefs about art’s value and usefulness to our circles of care. While these doubts still sometimes arise, especially in these times of climate crisis, global pandemics, and violent global conflict, I know that, particularly in these dark times, art can provide vital and permissive spaces in which to ask the difficult questions, to start a dialogue, and to intimately connect with others and ourselves.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
There are so many places to explore in the Bay Area! The following is a random assortment of my favorites and they are all free: The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Bay Model, a working hydraulic scale model of the San Francisco Bay and Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta System; the Alameda Point Antiques Faire, the largest antiques show in Northern California, held on the 1st Sunday of every month; Point San Pablo Harbor, a ramshackle marina and small community that echoes a more DIY community-minded Bay Area of the past; Albany Bulb, a former landfill, once the site of a large houseless community, and now home to a plethora of artistic interventions and installations; and finally, my favorite beach, Black Sands Beach in the Headlands, a string of 3 separate sprawling beaches, boasting few people, a view of San Francisco, and a nude beach if that’s your style.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
I’d have to start with my parents who provided so many of the opportunities that have allowed me to shape this life and career for myself. Their work ethic, love of beauty, independence, and open-mindedness are an inspiration. I am also deeply grateful for my community of friends who continue to astound and humble me with their talent, kindness, generosity, support, and perspectives.

Website: Www.tanjageis.com

Instagram: Geis.t

Other: Current Exhibition: https://www.for-site.org/tanja-geis-at-the-guardhouse-1

Image Credits
Lisa Ellsworth, Tanja Geis

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