Artist Susan Giles’ work takes root in the eye of the tourist. The artist has presented hours of video documentation taken by vacationers and amateur videographers around the world. In 2005, Giles participated in the exhibition “Universal Experience: Art, Life and the Tourist’s Eye,” curated by Francesco Bonami at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) in Chicago. Unassuming establishing shots of local scenery are spliced with scenes of street performers and the insides of airports, among countless other nondescript locations. In a recent exhibition with the Kavi Gupta Gallery in Chicago, the artist recreated a portion of the Eiffel Tower made completely of constructed foamcore in a work titled “Pilier Sud.” Both bodies of work, while formally different, present very similar conceptual concerns dealing with ideas related to tourism, place and photographic documentation. The artist is a recipient of a Louis Comfort Tiffany Award and a Fulbright Full Grant to Indonisia sponsored by the Museum Nasional in Jakarta and Sekolah Tinggi Seni in Indonesia. Giles has exhibited with numerous national spaces such as Spencer Brownstone Gallery in New York and Deluxe Projects in Chicago.