Through a transdisciplinary practice integrating sculpture, performance and video, Lu Heintz (she/they) engages feminist ethics of care, labor, and technology. The work develops from feminist and queer histories and often elucidates the conditions of invisible labor, with particular focus on the sensual, affective experiences of the body. Heintz creates sculptures preoccupied with material histories and artifacts such as clothing, furniture, equipment and tools, observing and reflecting the co-constitution of bodies and objects. These projects perforate normative standards and upend paradigms of use-value and ability. Heintz is also an Assistant Professor of Open Media in the Department of Fine Arts at Brandeis University. Areas of scholarship include gender justice, queer theory, affect, performance studies, and feminist economic perspectives. Heintz has contributed essays to Book Marks (Pressing Concern Books: NY, 2020), Repair: Sustainable Design Futures (Routledge: London, 2023), and Event Scores by Artist-Parents (Rooftop Ins.: Hong Kong, 2023).
Heintz holds a BFA from Rhode Island School of Design and MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Heintz has been a resident at Vermont Studio Center, MASS MoCA, Arts Letters & Numbers (NY), and Baer Art Center (Iceland). Recent exhibitions include the RISD Museum; Metal Museum (TN); LHUCA (TX); Strano Film Fest (IT); and Wedding Cake House (RI). They have received awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, Rhode Island State Council on the Arts, International Sculpture Center, Sustainable Arts Foundation and Mellon Foundation for the 2025 Providence Commemoration Lab–re-imagining monuments and public forms of memory.