Cambridge Artist Wendy Jacob Wins MFA’s 2011 Maud Morgan Prize

Cambridge-based artist Wendy Jacob won the the Museum of Fine Arts’ 2011 Maud Morgan Prize Monday, the MFA announced.

Jacob organized a conference in 2009 at which participants experienced sound through the floor. (Courtesy MFA)

Jacob will receive $10,000, and her work will be shown in the MFA’s new Linde Family Wing for Contemporary Art, which is slated to open September 18. The Maud Morgan Prize was created in 1993 to highlight visionary women artists in Massachusetts.

Jacob is a Brookline native and spent a fair bit of time taking art classes at the MFA as a child. She studied at Williams College and the school of the Art Institute in Chicago. Currently Jacob is working at MIT’s architecture school in the Art, Culture and Technology program.

Through her work Jacob explores deeply human responses to the world around us. She has created “interactions” between people and inanimate objects, like architectural structures and furniture. Also nature and sound.

Jacob’s installations have involved deaf students at Gallaudet and she’s extremely involved with the autistic community. Her efforts to engage diverse populations in unusual ways is fascinating.

To learn more visit her website.