Vanessa Diaz MFA, University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida 2013. Her practice explores routine interactions of the residential experience to further develop strategies of customizing objects and architecture as a method of claiming space. Utilizing scavenged furnishings and architectural elements in specific combinations, offering an anti-conventional association of home décor. In altered positions and unpredictable physical circumstances common objects distort the expected perceptions of daily use and comment on customary living habits. Through site-specific installation, sculpture and video, her work explores diverse approaches to customizing architecture, nomadic definitions of boundaries and various indicators that define personal territories. 

 In 2014,  Diaz was awarded a Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters and Sculptors Grant and a South Florida Cultural Consortium Fellowship. She was one of ten artists invited to exhibit in the premier Florida Prize in Contemporary Art exhibition at the Orlando Museum of Art. Recently, Diaz developed a site-specific installation at Project Row Houses in Houston, TX.  She has received several fellowships for residency, including The Atlantic Center for the Arts (FL), BAU Institute Camargo Foundation (France), The Schwandorf Kunstlerhaus (Germany), the Wassaic Projects (NY), and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts (VA).