Image (detail) © Hannah Brancato, Summer 2024 MassArt Visiting Artist and Critic

MFA SUMMER LECTURE SERIES

VISITING SPEAKERS

Each summer, the MFA Low-Residency program hosts a Summer Lecture Series featuring artists, curators, and scholars who present their work to our community–many of whom also meet with our students for one-on-one and group critiques. From emerging to mid-career to well established artists, we seek out voices and perspectives that have the potential to open new worlds for our students and shift the way they view their own practice. These lectures are open to the MassArt community and to the general public.

SUMMER 2024 LINEUP

KELLY KNIGHT | July 11 | 4:30pm

Kelly Knight (she/her) is a multimedia artist based in Providence, RI. She earned her MFA in 3D Fibers from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design, her BA in Creative Writing from Lesley University, and did her BFA studies in the Fibers program at Swain School of Design/UMass Dartmouth. She shows regularly in solo and group shows, and her work is in numerous private collections. She is the Interdisciplinary Low Residency MFA Program Director and Assistant Professor at MassArt.

FALAKS VASA | July 18 | 4:30pm

Falaks Vasa (they/she, b. 1995) is an interdisciplinary artist, emerging writer and award-winning educator from Kolkata, India. Falaks graduated from Brown University with an MFA in literary arts in 2023 and from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago with a BFA in 2018. She has also attended artist residencies at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture and the Artists’ Cooperative Residency & Exhibitions (ACRE). They have published a chapbook of poetry with the unnamed zine project, won the Archambault Award for Teaching Excellence from Brown University and have shown their artwork internationally at spaces like the Queer Arts Festival, Vancouver; the Queens Museum, NYC; and BARTALK, The Hague.

JASMINE CHEN | July 19 | 6:30pm

Jasmine Chen (she/her) is a visual artist originally from Beijing, China, and is currently based in Boston. Her work is in the permanent collection of the Danforth Art Museum and has been exhibited there and at Matter and Light Fine Art, the Jackson Homestead Museum, and elsewhere. It was also featured in solo exhibits at the New Art Center and Storefront Art Projects. She has a B.A. from Harvard and PhD from Brandeis and studied art independently. In 2023, she attended artist residencies at S.E.A.R. in Searsport, Maine and the Vermont Studio Center in Johnson, VT, and was the artist-in-residence at the Umbrella Art Center in Concord, Mass. last fall and artist-in-residence at the Storefront Art Projects January 2024.

HANNAH BRANCATO | July 25 | 4:30pm | *Keynote Lecture

Hannah Brancato (she/her) is an artist and educator based in Baltimore, whose art practice is grounded in collective storytelling, and the creation of public rituals to bring people’s stories together. She is faculty at Maryland Institute College of Art, Towson University and UMBC. Hannah is a recipient of the 2021 Rubys Artist Grant for Dreamseeds, an installation of textiles, sound, and interactive components that will invite current and budding activists in Baltimore to develop visions for the future, co-created with Sanahara Ama Chandra. Brancato is co-founder FORCE: Upsetting Rape Culture, an art/organizing collective that produces creative interventions to create a culture of consent, best known for the Monument Quilt.

LECTURE SERIES ARCHIVE

To view passcode-protected recordings, please contact the Graduate Programs Team (gradprogram@massart.edu).