Her art work deals with the politics of perception and the capacity of speech and language to produce political change. As the former director of production at Eyebeam, she founded a studio that worked with socially-based moving image, sound, public art and open source software. Crean has received grants and commissions from Art in General, Bronx Arts Council, Harvestworks, NYFA, NYSCA, Performa, Rhizome and Creative Time.