Vida Pavesich makes digital collages based on her photographs of children, forests, oceans, sunsets, the environment, and more. She taught philosophy for many years and maintains an art practice. She has been profoundly affected by teaching environmental ethics. She relished diving into the literature, not knowing how much it would disturb her, or how it would initially inform her art making and her understanding of the human place in the world in the age that is now called the “Anthropocene.” She has a PhD in philosophy from the University of California, San Diego, and coursework sufficient for a BFA from California State University East Bay [when it was called Cal State Hayward] plus many art courses and workshops in various art media.
Through her digital collages, Vida Pavesich began by exploring the idea of the “Anthropocene,” the possibly new geological age brought about by human behavior that inadvertently has affected the planetary boundaries necessary to sustain life as we have known it. She works with her photos as she grapples with what it means to be human during a time that challenges the integrity of environments. Everything is interconnected, whether we see, hear, or smell it. It all seeps into the environment and is passed on to new generations. Where are we? Where are we going? What choices will we make? More recent work has branched into narratives of other areas of human experience.
For each digital collage, I combine several of my photographs, layering them in Photoshop. Some photos will be partially transparent or parts of them will be “smudged” with a brush tool, elements from other photos will be inserted, and so on, such that they fuse into one image. Images guide me as they coalesce and a narrative emerges. The process always surprises me.
Resume
@photoartvida
Education
Ph.D., Philosophy, University of California at San Diego, August 2003: major fields of study: philosophical anthropology, twentieth-century continental philosophy, history of philosophy.
CSU East Bay: extensive coursework in visual arts, e.g., painting, printmaking, photography.
M.A., Philosophy, University of California at San Diego.
B.A., Philosophy, San Diego State University. Graduated with distinction in philosophy.
Art, Research, and Teaching Interests
Digital collage reflecting my interest in environmental and political philosophy.
Areas of academic specialization: philosophical anthropology, environmental philosophy, environmental ethics, continental philosophy, history of philosophy.
Teaching Experience
Lecturer,
Department of Philosophy, University of San Francisco, 2022 to 2024.
Department of Philosophy, Diablo Valley College, Pleasant Hill, CA, 1993 to 2022.
Department of Philosophy, California State University, East Bay, 2005 to 2022.
Exhibitions
O’Hanlon Gallery, “What’s Going On?” 2026
Bioneers art exhibit, “Earth Takes the Lead,” 2026
West Portal Gallery, annual juried show, 2026
“Calm Amidst the Chaos,” Rambler Magazine show, 2025
“Fragile Earth,” Livermore Valley Arts, 2025
O’Hanlon Gallery, “Art as Refuge,” 2025
Bioneers art exhibit, 2025
Ongoing representation by Loupe Art
Arc Gallery, San Francisco, “ACCESS: An Ordinary Notion,” June 15-July 13, 2024
Arts Benicia, “Properties of Water,” 2023
Climate Art Collective, Berlin, “Confrontation,” 2023 [plus published interview]
Marin Society of the Arts, San Rafael “Dreams and Nightmares,” 2023
WEAD [Women Eco Artists Dialog], online exhibit, “Kinship with Birds in Flight and Plight,”2023
UMA Gallery, Oakland, “Comfortably Numb,” 2023
East Bay Open Studios—many years
Hiatus during which I completed a PhD in Philosophy, began teaching, and publishing.
Creative Arts Center, Sunnyvale, CA two-person show, 1990
Hatley-Martin Gallery, San Francisco, Works on paper, 1989
Pro-Arts Open Studios—many years
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art Rental Gallery, three-person show and ongoing representation
Ames Gallery, Berkeley, CA; two-person show and ongoing representation in the 1980s.
1978-1980—many juried shows during the 1980s—list available.
Publications
“Working on the Myth of the Anthropocene: Hans Blumenberg and Why We Still Need Philosophical Anthropology,” 2022, New German Critique.
“Hans Blumenberg: Philosophical Anthropology and the Ethics of Consolation,” in Naturalism and Philosophical Anthropology, edited by Phillip Honenberger, Palgrave, 2015
“Vulnerability, Power, and Gender: An Anthropological Mediation Between Critical Theory and Poststructuralism,” in Essays in the Philosophy of Humanism, 2014.
“Science, Normativity, and Skill: Reviewing and Renewing the Anthropological Basis of Critical Theory,” with Lenny Moss, Philosophy and Social Criticism, 2011
“Rethinking Kant’s Third and Fourth Questions with Blumenberg and McCarthy,” Thesis 11, 2011.
“Hans Blumenberg: Philosophical Anthropology, Terror, and the Faces of Absolutism,” Diapsalmata, 2010.
“Hans Blumenberg’s Philosophical Anthropology: After Heidegger and Cassirer, The Journal of the History of Philosophy, Summer, 2008.
“Gender and Hans Blumenberg’s Theory of Myth,” International Studies in Philosophy, Summer 2000
“The Marquis de Sade’s Juliette: Libertinism, Female Agency, and Pornography,” in Porn 101: Eroticism Pornography and the First Amendment, Prometheus Press, 1999; [included presentation of my paintings accompanying the presentation of my written work.]