Jeffrey Yoo Warren, is a multidisciplinary artist, educator, and crafter whose work explores themes of cultural heritage, identity, and community. Jeffrey shares his unique journey from studying architecture to finding his calling in artistic practices deeply rooted in historical research and traditional craftsmanship.

Through his residency at the Library of Congress, Jeffrey talks about the reconstruction of early Asian American communities and neighbourhoods, creating immersive virtual and physical models that invite viewers to experience and connect with these often-overlooked histories. 

He also shares his passion for woodworking, papermaking, and learning traditional Korean crafts, allowing him to forge a tangible link with his ancestral roots and cultural inheritance.

Guest Bio:
Jeffrey Yoo Warren (he/him) is a Korean American artist educator, illustrator, community scientist and researcher in Providence, RI, whose recent work combines ancestral craft practices and creative work with diasporic memory through virtual collaborative worldbuilding. He has spent years creating collaborative community science projects which decenter dominant culture in environmental knowledge production. Jeff is an educator with Movement Education Outdoors and AS220, and part of the New Old art collective with Aisha Jandosova, hosting art-making and storytelling events with older adults; he is also the 2023 Innovator in Residence at the Library of Congress for my ongoing project Seeing Lost Enclaves: Relational reconstructions of erased historic neighborhoods of color.
His current artistic practice investigates how people build identity and strength through their interactions with artifacts and histories, and the ways that objects can tell stories that people can be part of in the present.