Directory Profile

Lisa Mann primarily teaches stop-motion physical animation classes, (Intro to the Art of Animation and Intro to Film Graphics – Animation), Animation Seminar, and Cinematic and Media-based Installation art, a production class focusing on site-specific media installations and projection mapping.

In her art practice, Mann has investigated a broad range of social and cultural issues through an intersectional feminist lens. Her research on technology and nature, homelessness, the relationship between guns and children, domestic labor, and domestic violence has culminated in media works, sculpture, site-specific installations, photography, projection mapping, community-based art, and performance art.

Mann’s most recent project, The Servants (2019), featured video projections on the porch of the historic Gamble House, in Pasadena, California.

In 2016, Mann was awarded a My Town grant from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) for ROTO PASADENA, a community-based public artwork featuring rotoscope animations projection-mapped onto Pasadena’s City Hall, Police Station and Public Library.

Mann was the co-author and co-organizer of the SCA 2018 symposium, Breaking the Glass Frame: Women and Animation, Past, Present, Future, focusing on women, diversity, and inclusion in the animation industry and academia. The event occurred during the height of the #MeToo movement to spotlight women’s achievements in animation and explore solutions to sexual harassment, bias, and lack of diversity in the industry and academia.

Mann has co-authored and organized several USC Visions and Voices, Arts and Humanities events, including Mary Shelley’s ‘Frankenstein’ Re-animated in 2019. This live, interactive, immersive event was a collaboration with all six of USC’s art schools and featured 40 minutes of original, Frankenstein-themed animation by Hench-DADA students projected onto USC’s Doheny Library façade. Other notable V&V events are PiKA PiKA! Light Animation (2011), and Animated Spaces | Animated Bodies (2009).

As Hench-DADA’s Exhibition Director, Mann oversees the Division’s screenings and gallery exhibitions, including the annual student screenings, First Frame and the Animation Graduation Showcase.

Mann received her BA in Art from Brown University and MFA from CalArts Experimental Animation program. Her thesis film received a Student Academy Award (Silver, Alternative) in 1993. She is the recipient of a Rockefeller Media Arts Fellowship (1995) and several grants from the City of Pasadena Cultural Affairs, the Brody Arts Fund, and the Annenberg Foundation Independent Media grant.

Mann’s art can be seen at www.lisa-mann.com