Space 1: Collaboration and People
This space explores how people can inspire one another in the artistic process and creates an echo-chamber of creativity. The room features artists working in collaboration with one another and artists inspired by individuals in their lives.
Artist Statements
1. This publication was made by U.S. Citizens in solidarity with Palestine by Sophia Dell'Arciprete & Kalena Marshall Garcia
In collaboration, we created a newspaper publication aimed at challenging the silence of academic institutions. This newspaper serves as an act of resistance, highlighting the urgent need for Tyler School of Art and Architecture to address its lack of response to the ongoing genocide of Palestinians. Through our publication, we aimed to raise awareness, spark dialogue, and call for accountability in the face of this humanitarian crisis. The paper was released in light of Tyler adding mandatory disclaimers to their gallery spaces due to artists making work about Palestine.
2. Vibrational by Karly Mehaan in Collaboration with Michaela Guthrie and Akino Lessey
A Collaboration with Dance students at Boyer School of Music and Dance in response to Echo-Systems Exhibition at Tyler School of Art and Architecture.
3. The Clitstory of Fawn Girl by Blithe Ophelia Grey
The monumental quilt ‘the clitstory of fawn girl’ points to the physical/metaphysical methods we use to continuously construct the reality/realities we preside in. This quilt was manifested primarily through a week-long quilting bee that I hosted within my Tyler cohort. The quilting bee became a fabricated space that engaged with the histories of quilting and allowed the work to navigate the proximal relationship of oral histories to these specific spaces. Although the quilting bee was initially hosted out of a necessity for extra hands, there was a deep reward for all of those in attendance in realizing how the process of the bee was just as significant as the finished work. Within the bee, we directly participated in our own history-making/reality-constructing with each other.
4. Cuéntame tus secretos cariño by Claudia Gabriel
My work is a fibers sculpted consisting of an opening with little hand sewn pillows. Within these pillows are anonymous secrets I collected from other people in both my classes and others. The inspiration behind this peace developed from moving from a smaller town into Philadelphia and Temple. Back home it was harder to express who I was and my identity but during my first year I was shocked at how open and comfortable people were with themselves and each other. I was excited to meet new people and hear other stories. I am half Puerto Rican and in our culture family and close friendships are important to community. Hence the seashell shape as most of my childhood was playing in ocean with friends and family nearby. I was pretty shy the first year because I had grown used to trying to blend in and stick to myself so this project was a big challenge to try and reach out and ask people to be so vulnerable for my project, with the help of my current 2D foundations professor I was able to get a lot more submissions than I had hoped.
5. Srđan Tunić x Aleksandar Jevtić by Srđan Tunić
In 2021, I had a solo show in Belgrade with polymer clay and assemblage pieces which were homages to artists--mostly friends and some from popular culture. One of the homages was inspired with the work of Aleksandar Jevtić, an artist and educator from Serbia whom I have known since 2014, who does drawings. The challenge was to transform his complex whimsical characters from 2D to 3D. The exhibition featured a small piece, but I wanted to do something bigger. In 2022 I made “Where Do We Stand #2” which recreates one of Aleksandar's drawings in 2D (polymer clay & found material), which was exhibited at Pence Gallery in Davis, CA. The piece is a testament to our friendship and fuzzy borders—where does a curator’s work stop and artist’s begin?
6. Vessels that Heal by Moe Marte
The piece “Vessels that Heal” was created with the help of my glass blowing partner, Sophia Vega as well as cultural knowledge and intuition from my ancestors. This piece is an offering with vessels filled with different combinations of teas, herbs, grains, and fruits that would help heal the body. Each vessel serves as a space with potential to heal, the emptiness represents the trauma and the combination of herbs etc. that is filled with comes from the help of my familial line passing down spiritual healing knowledge or you could say “garden magic.” This piece had me connect with my partner in making the actual glass vessels as well as channeling the memory of past loved ones and cultivating their knowledge to fill each vessel with unique healing potions.
7. Jokes of Despair by Mecca Jacobs
The creation of this piece was the result of my classmates in a drawing class. We were put in a circle and gave each other suggestions for our new project. Everyone in the class suggested that I should create a work of horror with distortions, as well as pushed me to use color. I was proud to see everyone’s input come together to form such a piece.
8. Of The Now by Tyler Print MFA Department
This work developed as a collaborative project in the Printmaking Graduate Projects class, Spring 2024. Students in the class are Nilou Kazemzadeh, Heather Swenson, Rae Helms, Jake Lahah, Henry Rosenberg and Francesca Lally. Invited collaborators into the project include Amze Emmons, Katie Garth, Yaqeen Yamani, and Ruben Castillo. The prompt for the piece is "OF THE NOW A compendium of artistic visions in response to this present moment. Inviting in utopic visions, critical perspectives, contemporary narratives, and prototypes of futures." The newspaper will be printed through the British company Newspaper Club.
*Please feel free to pick up and read.
9. Take One! by Rae Helms
I see printmaking as an art form that emphasizes collaboration, community, and accessibility. With its roots deep in counter-culture and the dissemination of information to the masses, printmaking inherently embodies collaboration. These prints allow the audience to collaborate and interact with the work and take pieces off the prints to keep.
10. POST.VISCERAL by Rafael Zacks
This work was created with my peers and my psychiatric team:
My memory was long forgotten and not
well missed, it was also never
Forgiven
It became antiquated and illusive
An invention of past intention
I didn’t then
I won’t now
Ears ringing
In the trash
The blood I gave the doctor because of
The scare
Discarded
The picture frame that was thrown,
The scar still there
All that’s left is the shell of a memory forgotten, a brain corrupted
11. Momento Mori for Me-mom by Laura Adams
to ‘Remember you must die’ in which one is encouraged to enjoy all of life up until their inevitable fate. During my time studying abroad in Rome I had to remember that I must live this experience to the fullest despite grieving the loss of a loved one. My grandmother, my Me-Mom, passed in the weeks leading up to my departure to Europe. I felt excited and grateful for the opportunity to go abroad, however I felt guilty leaving my family. My grandmother and I had a special connection as I am named after her mother Laura, Now I must carry on the memory of my grandmother as my mom did before me without physically being with any of my family. I decided to create a piece that would allow me to still feel connected to her and my family while 4,000 miles away. The Claddagh and Irish piece of jewelry depicts two hands, representing friendship, holding a heart, representing love, with a crown, representing loyalty. My grandmother often gave gifts to her grandchildren with this symbol on it expressing both our Irish heritage and her love for us. For the piece made during my internship I designed my own spin on the Claddagh depicting anatomical imagery of human hands and heart. Working on the ring and now getting to wear the ring in my daily life I can hear my grandmother telling me to stop crying over her but get out there and make art! Memento Mori, to remember life in death something that was crucial during my experience in Rome and my grieving process.
12. Julie by Em Kleaver
Julie is a ceramic containment vessel from a continuous body of work that aims to respond to the complex interwoven nature of our unique relationships with one another - and the symbols, colors, textures and ephemeral feelings we sometimes associate with them. It embodies the idea of interconnectedness both through material choices and proposed conceptual usage. This piece in particular serves as a pseudo-spiritual space to represent and hold the myriads of emotions that accompany my connection to my sister; a creative forward thinker who shapes the world around her towards an ever evolving and better future. The type of impact she creates is a force that I have been lucky enough to feel and witness throughout our lives together. Everything from the shapes to the varying textures, to the codified surface decorations prime this ceramic vessel to function as a protective container for our shared memories and history together. These concepts are established through materiality - the work is comprised of two different clay bodies, co-existing and melding throughout the firing process. It also possesses translucent glass additions which contrast the grounded, solid ceramic body of the vessel, and are welcomed into the piece by the unique glazes that obscure the symbology of the vessel. This kind of material and conceptual collaboration could not have been possible without the wisdom and personal collaboration of so many kind and giving artists, nor without the ever-significant presence of my sister, Julie.