2023 MFA JANUARY COLLOQUIUM: Art, Craft + Identity
The false dichotomy and hierarchy between art and craft can be dissolved by looking at the larger framing of identity. How have power structures been woven into the making of things and how have objects served power structures in the world?
All art-making exists within contexts. Power and perception shape how art is thought of, categorized and understood, at times creating hierarchies between mediums and methods. Considering how identity intersects with material and meaning in a studio practice, how can we use this lens to reframe the false dichotomy between art and craft for 2023 and beyond?
2023 COLLOQUIUM PROGRAMMING
COLLOQUIUM WELCOME + ARTIST TALK WITH ANJALI SRINIVASAN
WEDNESDAY 1/4/23 | 6:00pm | VIA ZOOM
*Open to the Public
Welcome from MFA-LR Program Director Amy Giese, including opening remarks and framing of the 2023 colloquium focus: Art, Craft + Identity. Followed by an artist talk with Anjali Srinivasan at 7pm EST.
Glass artist Anjali Srinivasan’s studio processes focus on the development of ways to discover access and restructure information held in a material. She is interested in how investigation of matter speaks to creative sustenance.
*Contact gradprogram@massart.edu for password info.
COLLOQUIUM SEMINAR / STUDY GROUP
THURSDAY 1/5/23 | 12:45pm | VIA ZOOM
*Open to Current MassArt Graduate Students (Password-protected)
Art, Craft + Identity Academic Seminar, led by Amy Giese.
Review of reading materials and central concepts of the 2023 MFA-LR January Colloquium, Art, Craft + Identity.
*Contact gradprogram@massart.edu for password info.
MAKING SESSION WITH PATRICIA MIRANDA
MATERIAL PALIMPSEST
THURSDAY 1/5/23 | 3-5pm | VIA ZOOM
*Open to Current MFA-LR Students (Password-protected)
Using two specific historical natural dye sources, we will make water-based ink from raw materials. We will explore the aesthetic, conceptual, historic, scientific, environmental, and social discourses in these materials. Using these two materials as a jumping off point, we will discuss how materials, process, and ideas amalgamate into meaning, and strategize ways to read and map these lineages to create powerful rhizomatic artworks.
*Contact gradprogram@massart.edu for password info.
KEYNOTE LECTURE: JANET ECHELMAN
TAKING IMAGINATION SERIOUSLY: RE-SHAPING URBAN AIRSPACE
THURSDAY 1/5/23 | 6:30pm | VIA ZOOM
*Open to the Public
How can we design experiential private and public spaces to embody a spirit of innovation, foster spontaneous communities, and engage viewers in new and powerful ways? Keynote speaker Janet Echelman presents ways to harness the creative power of the flexible, the soft, and the transparent in cities around the world. Her experiential sculptures at the scale of buildings have become inviting focal points for civic life, combining ancient craft with the newest design and interactive technology. The result is a communal urban experience that is simultaneously virtual and physical.
*Contact gradprogram@massart.edu for password info.
PANEL DISCUSSION
IMBUING LIFE INTO MATTER: HOW MATERIALS HOLD MEANING
FRIDAY 1/6/23 | 2-4:30pm | VIA ZOOM
*Open to the Public
Panelists: Patricia Miranda, Gina Siepel, Jeffrey Nowlin
Moderated by Amy Giese
*Contact gradprogram@massart.edu for password info.
2023 COLLOQUIUM | ART, CRAFT + IDENTITY | VISITING ARTISTS + SPEAKERS
Artist Janet Echelman defies categorization. She creates billowing sculpture engineered to the scale of buildings, choreographed by wind and light, that shifts from being an object you look at, to a living environment you can get lost in.
Echelman’s TED talk “Taking Imagination Seriously” has been translated into 35 languages and viewed by millions. Recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship, Smithsonian American Ingenuity Award, Harvard Loeb Fellowship, and Fulbright Lectureship, Echelman was named an Architectural Digest Innovator for “changing the very essence of urban spaces.” Oprah ranked Echelman’s work #1 on her “List of 50 Things That Make You Say Wow!”
Gina Siepel is an interdisciplinary artist, designer, and woodworker. Their artistic practice reflects an engagement with place, history, queer experience, and ecology, and their work integrates conceptual concerns and craftsmanship with a focus on wood as a natural and a cultural material. Gina’s works have been shown in museums and galleries nationally, and she has been a fellow/artist-in-residence at arts organizations around the country, including Skowhegan, the Winterthur Museum, and Mildred’s Lane. Gina holds a BFA from the School of Art + Design at SUNY Purchase and an MFA from the Maine College of Art. They have taught at Amherst College, Mount Holyoke College, Mass Art, and the New Hampshire Institute of Art MFA program. Gina is a current Artist-in-Residence at the MacLeish Field Station at Smith College.