Space 2: Family and Culture
This space explores how families and culture inform the creative process. How artists can develop relationships and understandings of what shapes themselves and society connecting us as a part of a whole.
Artist Statements
1.FIS-2001-e by Jake Lahah
My practice negotiates tourism's responsibility in changing labor and social ecosystems in coastal towns. Working in collaboration with the Library of Congress Archives digital databases, I printed this photograph produced by John Collier in 1942. The photograph is of Portuguese fisherman on the coast of Provincetown, which I've screen printed onto a standard welcome flag that is commonly hung at storefronts. Working with photography found in archives allows me to bridge history with a material culture. For FIS-2001-e, I'm considering the ways local fishing has been historically destabilized by the commodification of vacationing in Provincetown, MA.
2. Like Water by Ari Zuaro
A large part of my research as a graduate student this year has revolved around the ways in which we as humans form identity and connect with one another. In efforts to connect with my own cultural identity I began to look to the works of Bruce Lee, one of the most recognizable and well known Chinese American icons. Listening to interviews and combing through footage of his films I wanted to find a way to coalesce with and learn from someone who continually broke barriers and found ways to assert his place in popular culture and within the Chinese diaspora. Using his philosophies as a guide I have placed us in this film together using audio clips from one of his most well-known roles as Li Tsung on the show Longstreet. Recontextualizing the narrative, it is now Bruce Lee who teaches me how to “become like water” as my body becomes a vessel for his knowledge and the liquid that flows through me. Consequently, the water collected from this activity was used and mixed to create more clay that becomes the teapot again, so that the viewer may also brew and make tea to enjoy as well.
3. They went to Orchard Beach every weekend by Kaitlin Santoro
This piece explores the process of creating stories about ancestors through photographs. The viewer never knows the entire story and fills in the cracks with their own perceptions. A family photo was etched onto glass, intentionally shattered, and then repaired using glass frit. This piece connects new technology, photography, and glass while using a photograph from an archive, linking two generations who never met.
4. Christmas at the O'Brien's, Cocktail Time, Morning Routine by Bridget Rogers
My work is rooted in the cultural values that I was raised on and my questioning of said values. In this particular series, Not For Play, I created miniature domestic spaces that are direct reflections or recreations of memories- some of the scenes are from my own memory while others are pulled from family members. Thus, this work is built upon the stories of my family and how it shapes my relationship with them for the better or worse. We worked together to distill memories that could be visually depicted in miniatures. I then also worked with my thesis committee to decide how to distort or exaggerate them to further my concepts. Additionally, the miniatures themselves required quite a bit of collaboration with miniature makers, the photography department, and my husband to physically make the miniature scenes with the furniture, photograph them with special equipment, and produce the mural size prints.
5. Barrel and Pieces by Joseph T Hoopes
This work has evolved in response to mass production of cheap plastic goods, particularly toys, which leave impressions on multiple generations of people across society. Without text or description, the objects meant to be cheap and replaceable are elevated to a new material with historic connections. The smithed barrel which requires arduous labor to create expresses the flexibility and ductility of metal as a material. This quality of flex goes hand in hand with the echoing memories present in an altered material such as cast bronze and forged copper.
6. Floated Out of My Throat by Feather Chiaverini
"Floated out of my throat" Explores how Queerness, Horror, Ensemble, and Texture are flexible tools in molding our identities . Four Zombies/mermaids/opera singers explode out of a hairy trunk curved at the bottom. Red Fringe falls like blood, hands protrude like coconuts, bodies merge on top of each other, becoming one new shape. Using craft techniques that create texture through multiplicity I think of Gay Clubs, Dance floors, Protests, and Chorus Lines, moments we move as one large being but keep ourselves.
7. Disco in the future by Michael Dela Dika
This work is a reflection of personal experience in relation to my home country Ghana and my engagement with my present world. Examining how our bodies become extensions of the world through accumulation of experiences.
8. Complications by Ziui Chen Vance
My paintings begin by discussing my past experiences, referencing the personal items that define and shape my relationship as an Asian woman amongst women. My work comes from a wide range of influences from my youth, such as my uniform, my ID, certificates, possessions, photographs, and dreams, transitioning these memories from society to painting, then from painting to virtual experience, exploring how personal narratives intertwined every day as part of my social identity. Through self-reflection and self-monitoring, the tools of painting, digital mediums, and augmented reality aid in gaining self-knowledge about how my behaviors, unseen habits, and thoughts are evolving.
9. Containers of Memory by Nasia Palasios
This series is an attempt to relate back to my ancestors and their cultures in the form of pottery, as well as both my grandmothers and their daily practices as a hairdresser and seamstresses. With this work, I wanted to bring their daily practices into my own daily life and processes. The forms are inspired by traditional forms originating from my family’s respective countries and hometowns— San Luis Potosí, Mexico, and Chios, Greece. The textured aspects are made from experimental processes made with hair dying tools, hair clips, thread, and sewing needles.
10. Untitled (Intermission) by Will Toney
The development of these pieces was inspired by rave culture. Especially, the collaborative element of creating temporary sites for joy on the margins. I knew that I wanted to create sculptures that resemble speakers, however the speaker itself would be a viewing apparatus. The pieces came to fruition through the help of the Tyler glass department. Mollie Hansen, Andrew Mahaffie, and I worked to develop the concept and practicality of making a glass lens that would magnify and distort the image contained within the speaker sculptures. These pieces required collaboration among experts of their respective fields to exist.
11. Rip, tear, slice by Noemi Nieves-Hoblin
This piece explores the connection between identity and the land. Through Text and material symbolism, it serves as a commentary on the commodification of island land. And the resistance against modern-day colonization and the forces of commercialization.
12. The Organ by Jill Ian Donohue
This work was developed through the exploration of the mutuality of shame, its relational cycle, and its consequences. What is shown here was originally used for a public performance and video installation titled Shame and Blame, experimenting with bodily shame within a public space. Now displayed on its own, The Organ is the fleshed reminder, the scar, of such shame-based behaviors.
13. Can you recognize that fish? By Maedeh Medipour
I possess a video depicting a local market scene from my hometown, which resonates deeply with me, particularly the image of fish stranded on the ground, deprived of water. I have been grappling with how to incorporate this video into my artistic endeavors in a unique manner. After several weeks of contemplation while sculpting, I have realized that these two elements can be effectively juxtaposed. Both the video and the sculpture address themes of violence, and intriguingly, they could also be metaphorically linked to the experiences of women's bodies.
14. Solafide: A Meditation on Reflection by Maria Missaoui
This piece features a broken liquor bottle placed carefully upon a card. The prayed card underneath is adorned with the serene face of Jesus, positioned deliberately beneath a liquor bottle. The placement of the sacred image under a symbol of temptation represents the presence of hope and divine guidance in times of turmoil. This work seeks to evoke a reflection on how we seek and find redemption, highlighting the resilience of the human spirit.
I aim to open a dialogue on the recovery of the soul—illuminating the silent battles people may face. The work is a meditation on the possibility of redemption and the potential role faith can play in the idea of overcoming obstacles.