Cooper Hewitt says...
Upon graduating in 1984 from Pasadena’s Art Center College of Design, Méndez taught first at her alma mater and then in the Design Media Arts Department at UCLA where she is presently working. In 1996 she also opened Rebeca Méndez Studio in partnership with her husband Adam Eeuwens. She specializes in film and video installations for cultural programs and institutions, collaborations with architects on interior commissions, photography, book design, and public art commissions. All of her creative activity embodies an important set of values, experimentation, collaboration, and creative integrity. The natural world is a thread running through all of Méndez’s work. She has traveled to such “extreme” environments as the Sahara desert, Patagonia, Iceland, Chile, and Finland, and the Arctic, studying how different cultures relate to and portray nature and documenting her research through photography. Méndez was the recipient of the 2012 National Design Award in the field of graphic design.
