Julia Oldham (b. 1979, Frederick, MD) is an artist living and working in Eugene, OR. Using a range of media, from animation to graphic storytelling, she creates narrative works that explore scientific history and speculative futures. Recent work includes Fallout Dogs (2019), an experimental documentary about the stray dogs of the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone; Terra (2020), a three-channel science fiction video installation about a post climate disaster future in which the few remaining humans are cared for by AI “Stewards”; and Dendrostalkers (2022), a hybrid live action and animated film about trees that have evolved to exist in higher dimensions.
Julia Oldham’s work has been shown widely, including exhibitions and screenings at the Queens Museum, Queens, NY; Smack Mellon, Brooklyn, NY; MoMA PS1 in Long Island City, NY; the Northwest Film Center at the Portland Art Museum, Portland, OR; the San Diego Art Institute, San Diego, CA; The Drawing Center in New York, NY; The Bronx Museum of Art in the Bronx, NY; The Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, IL; Oregon Contemporary, Portland, OR; and the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, MA.
She has been supported by Artadia, the Fund for Art and Dialogue; NYC Urban Field Station; Artist in the Marketplace at the Bronx Museum of Art; the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council; the Oregon Arts Commission; The Ford Family Foundation; and the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs. Her work has been reviewed in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and the Village Voice, and has been featured on the NPR shows “State of Wonder” on OPB and “Inquiry” on WICN.