Emily Siefken is a 10 year military veteran of two wars in the Middle East (U.S. Navy) where she performed diverse duties such as CCTV operator, documentary filmmaker, electronics engineer and boot-camp instructor. Siefken grew up in northern Iowa. She questions, through performance art and emerging technologies, what it means to be an American.  Her work primarily deals with ritual as it applies to military and Christian practice and women’s experience in wartime environments. 

ARTIST STATEMENT

As a woman, military veteran of two wars in the Middle East and now artist, I hope to bring my unique experiences to art and society. I am a soldier, a “perfect” model of American values, yet I represent “lack” in the same value system. Using feminist epistemology, it is my desire to create performance  art that evokes a discussion around what it means to be an American.
Through my body, strict discipline, and an analysis of art, literature, historical research, personal interviews and emerging technologies, I will draw common threads about women and war.  For my thesis projects honoring female Iraqi civilian casualties and female soldiers, it is my intent to provide an alternate image of femininity for western culture. Who were these women? I hope my work is ultimately inspiring and an exercise in repurposing energy.  As the great philosopher Simone Weil once said in her work Love: “Among human beings, only the existence of those we love is fully recognized.  Belief in the existence of other human beings as such... is love.”