Visiting Speaker Series
Artist Shantell Martin giving an artist's talk at the Center for the Arts on North Campus in 2017
All talks are live and in person, except where noted.
Face masks are optional but recommended.
Mondays at 6:30pm in 112 Center for the Arts
The Department of Art regularly invites artists, critics, historians and designers to participate in the Department of Art Speaker Series, classroom lectures and critiques. The lecture series happens every fall semester and is free to the public.
2022 Visting Speakers
- 9/12 • Noah Breuer
- 9/19 • Aviva Rahmani - virtual
- 9/26 • Dara Friedman
- 10/3 • Roberley Bell
- 10/10 • Michele Washington
- 10/17 • Tony Bluestone
- 10/24 • Helina Metaferia
- 10/31 • Marina Zurkow
- 11/7 • Heather Dewey-Hagborg
- 11/14 • Cassils
- 11/21 • Adham Faramawy- virtual
- 11/28 • xtine Burrough
- 12/5 • Ilona Gaynor
About the Artists
- 9/12 • Noah Breuer
- Noah Breuer received his BFA in printmaking from the Rhode Island School of Design, his MFA in Visual Arts from Columbia University and a Graduate Research Certificate in traditional Japanese woodblock printmaking and papermaking from Kyoto Seika University.
- His creative work examines themes of family, identity, labor, and diaspora. Exploring the fusion of traditional printmaking techniques and 21st-century tools and technology is fundamental to his art practice. His current research investigates early 20th century domestic textile design in Europe and the legacy of Jewish-owned textile printing companies in Czech Bohemia and their role within that economic and cultural landscape and considers the visual legacy they left behind. The case study for his research is “Carl Breuer and Sons” (CB&S), his family’s former textile printing business. The company’s archive of fabric samples and designs has been his springboard for creating an array of printed works which not only tell his family’s story of persecution and emigration, but also raise questions about labor, authorship and appropriation. Noah is assistant professor in the Department of Art.
- https://www.noahbreuer.com
- 9/19 • Aviva Rahmani - virtual
- Aviva Rahmani‘s longstanding interdisciplinary art practice focuses on ecological restoration as artmaking. Her projects have won numerous grants and fellowships and have been written about internationally. Her work has been featured at venues including the Thomas Erben Gallery, NYC; Various Small Fires, Los Angeles; KRICT Gallery, South Korea; Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, Colorado; the Hudson River Museum, NY; the Cincinnati Center for Contemporary Art, Ohio; and the “Joseph Beuys 100 days of Conference Pavilion” for the 2007 Venice Biennale, Italy. She is an affiliate of the Institute for Arctic and Alpine Research at the University of Colorado at Boulder, gained her PhD from the University of Plymouth, UK, and received her BFA/MFA at the California Institute of the Arts. She is the author of Divining Chaos: The Autobiography of an Idea which explores how art can help us see our way out of a chaotic and declining world. Her current project “Blued Trees” resists ecocide by challenging the legal basis to build fossil fuel infrastructure. Rahmani is co-founder of the ecoart listserv, co-editor of “Ecoart in Action: Activities, Case Studies, and Provocations for Classrooms and Communities”. She lives in Maine with her cat Bliss.
- https://www.avivarahmani.com
- 9/26 • Dara Friedman
- Dara Friedman uses everyday sights and sounds as the raw material for film and video artworks that reverberate with emotional energy. With a background in structural film and dance, Friedman’s cinema calls for a radical reduction of the medium to its most essential material properties. Friedman’s solo exhibitions include: The Tiger’s Tail, San Carlo Cremona, Italy (2022), Harburger Kunstverein (2019), a mid-career survey “Dara Friedman: Perfect Stranger”, Pérez Art Museum Miami (2017-2018), Aspen Art Museum (2017), Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2014), and Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, New York (1998, 2000, 2002, 2007, 2011, 2014 and 2017) among others. Major public collections include The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; and Julia Stoschek Collection, Düsseldorf. Friedman is a recipient of the Rome Prize (1999) and a Guggenheim Fellow (2019). Recently she completed "The Empress", a large-scale labyrinth commission. She is currently in production with Ecologist Josh Smith on River Hill at Silo City in Buffalo through a residency with the University at Buffalo Arts Collaboratory. The project is an active monumental garden and labyrinth transforming a quarter acre of brownfield with hardy pollinators and speaking to the meander of the Buffalo River.
- https://www.darafriedman.com
- 10/3 • Roberley Bell
- Roberley Bell is inspired by nature and time. Her practice draws on the world around her, in particular the scrutiny of nature and the built environment. Alongside her sculpture practice, Bell has developed a practice of walking moving outside the studio to investigate place in real time. Bell is the recipient of numerous fellowships including awards from the New York Foundation for the Arts, a Pollock Krasner Fellowship, and a Senior Scholar Fulbright to Turkey. Her book Do you know this tree? Published by Visual Studies Workshop, Rochester, New York is the cumulation of a ten-year walking project in Istanbul. Most recently she was a research fellow in the department of Urban Planning at Malmo University in Sweden. Bell has had numerous residencies including the Cite International in Paris. Stadt Künstlerhaus, Salzburg, Austria, The International Studio Program, NYC and Sculpture Space, Utica NY amongst others. Bell’s work has been exhibited and reviewed internationally including Istanbul, Turkey, Kaliningrad, Russia, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Cambridge and Cleveland. Her upcoming exhibition “Making the Marks: Sculpture and Drawing” opens at the Brattleboro Museum of Art in June 2023. Bell maintains a studio in the historic canal city of Holyoke, MA.
- https://www.roberleybell.com
- 10/10 • Michele Washington
- Michele Washington is a NYC-based designer. She applies Design Thinking and User-Centered Interaction Design solutions to address complex issues which deliver meaningful solutions and solve problems that are culturally relevant. Recent projects include mobile publishing platforms and web-based integration, content strategy and curating popups. She has worked with Coforma, A Long Walk Home, City as Living Lab, the Chronicle of Higher Education, desigNYC, Museum of Science and Industry among others. She is founder of “Curious Story Lab,” a podcast series and short documentary films featuring designers, architects, urbanism, fashion and product designers and food designers of color. Keeping a stake hold in her creative community is critical and she often frequently speaks about Design and the History of African American Designers. She teaches branding and design in the MA Faculty Exhibition Design program at the Fashion Institute of Technology. Her work has been exhibited in “Women Designers in the USA, 1900-2000: Diversity and Difference” held at the Bard Graduate Center, Design Journey: You Are Here at the AIGA headquarters, and Google Black History and Culture. Michele’s writing and visual essays has appeared in AIGA Design Journey website, American Passin It Down Cookbook, Print Magazine, IRAAA Webzine and the Design Crit Chapbook. She is the editor of culturalboundaries.com a design and pop culture blog.
- https://www.officeofmichelewashington.com
- 10/17 • Tony Bluestone
- Tony Bluestone (b. Englewood, New Jersey) received an MFA from Hunter college and has participated in residencies including The Shandanken Project, The Basil Alakazi Residency in Detroit, DNA Residency in Provincetown and The Prattsville Art Center. She has had solo shows at Freight & Volume Gallery, Elaine L Jacob gallery at Wayne State University in Detroit, at Larrie Gallery and a Two-Person Show at La Mama Gallery. She has had work in group shows at Rachel Uffner, The Academy of Arts and Letters, the New School, Etay Gallery, and Left Field Gallery, and has also performed written works at Storm King Art Center. In 2017, she was awarded the John Koch Award by the Academy of Arts and Letters. Bluestone is a teacher at Cooper Union and Hunter College.
- https://www.tonybluestone.com
- 10/24 • Helina Metaferia
- Helina Metaferia is an interdisciplinary artist working across collage, assemblage, video, performance, and social engagement. Her work integrates archives, somatic studies, and dialogical practices, creating overlooked narratives that amplify BIPOC/femme bodies. Recent solo exhibitions include Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA (2022); New York University's The Gallatin Galleries, New York, NY (2021); Michigan State University's Scene Metrospace Gallery, East Lansing, MI (2019); and Museum of African Diaspora, San Francisco, CA (2017). Her work is in the permanent collection of institutions including Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA; RISD Art Museum, Providence, RI; and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York, NY. Residencies include MacDowell, Yaddo, Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, and MASS MoCA. She is currently a 2021-2023 artist-in-residence at Silver Art Projects at the World Trade Center in New York City. Her work has been written about in publications including The New York Times, Financial Times, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, Artnet News, and Hyperallergic. Metaferia is an Assistant Professor at Brown University in the Visual Art department, and lives and works in New York City.
- https://www.helinametaferia.com
- 10/31 • Marina Zurkow
- Marina Zurkow is a research-based media artist committed to systemic change in ecological justice. Her projects (sometimes with collaborators) offer emotional connections to multispecies and geologic phenomena that modern humans often take for granted or deprioritize in favor of “humans on top.” The materials / technologies Zurkow employs include software, animation, sound, food, mushroom mycelium, and printmaking. She works as a founding member of several collaborative initiatives, including Dear Climate and Investing in Futures. Zurkow's recent solo exhibitions include ICA San Diego, bitforms gallery, New York and Borusan Contemporary, Istanbul; her work has been featured at Storm King Art Center, New York, 21C Museum, Louisville, the 7th Moscow Biennale, Smithsonian American Art Museum, and Sundance Film Festival; among others. Zurkow is a 2011 Guggenheim Fellow and received grants from NYFA, NYSCA, the Rockefeller Foundation, and Creative Capital. She is represented by bitforms gallery and resides in the Hudson Valley, New York.
- https://www.o-matic.com
- 11/7 • Heather Dewey-Hagborg
- Heather Dewey-Hagborg is an artist and biohacker who is interested in art as research and technological critique. Her controversial biopolitical art practice includes the project Stranger Visions in which she created portrait sculptures from analyses of genetic material collected in public places. Her work has been shown internationally at events and venues including the World Economic Forum; Daejeon Biennale; Guangzhou Triennial; Shenzhen Urbanism and Architecture Biennale; Transmediale, Berlin, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Philadelphia Museum of Art; and PS1 MOMA, New York. Dr. Dewey-Hagborg is an Artist-in-Residence at the Exploratorium in San Francisco and an affiliate of Data & Society. She is also a founding board member of Digital DNA, a European Research Council funded project investigating the changing relationships between digital technologies, DNA and evidence as well as a co-founder/co-curator of REFRESH, an inclusive and politically engaged collaborative platform at the intersection of art, science, and technology. Dewey-Hagborg is featured in UB Art Galleries exhibition “I don’t know you like that: The Bodywork of Hospitality” guest curated by Sylvie Fortin November 2022 — May 2023. Talk co-sponsored by UB Art Galleries.
- https://deweyhagborg.com
- Heather Dewey-Hagborg is an artist and biohacker who is interested in art as research and technological critique. Her controversial biopolitical art practice includes the project Stranger Visions in which she created portrait sculptures from analyses of genetic material collected in public places. Her work has been shown internationally at events and venues including the World Economic Forum; Daejeon Biennale; Guangzhou Triennial; Shenzhen Urbanism and Architecture Biennale; Transmediale, Berlin, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Philadelphia Museum of Art; and PS1 MOMA, New York. Dr. Dewey-Hagborg is an Artist-in-Residence at the Exploratorium in San Francisco and an affiliate of Data & Society. She is also a founding board member of Digital DNA, a European Research Council funded project investigating the changing relationships between digital technologies, DNA and evidence as well as a co-founder/co-curator of REFRESH, an inclusive and politically engaged collaborative platform at the intersection of art, science, and technology. Dewey-Hagborg is featured in UB Art Galleries exhibition “I don’t know you like that: The Bodywork of Hospitality” guest curated by Sylvie Fortin November 2022 — May 2023. Talk co-sponsored by UB Art Galleries.
- 11/14 • CASSILS
- CASSILS is a transgender artist who makes their own body the material and protagonist of their performances. Cassils's art contemplates the history(s) of LGBTQI+ violence, representation, struggle and survival. Cassils has had recent solo exhibitions at HOME Manchester, Station Museum of Contemporary Art, Perth Institute for Contemporary Arts, Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, NYC; Institute for Contemporary Art, AU; Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts; School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston; Bemis Center, Omaha; MU Eindhoven, Netherlands. They are the recipient of the National Creation Fund (2022), a 2020 Fleck Residency from the Banff Center for the Arts, a Princeton Lewis Artist Fellowship finalist (2020), a Villa Bellagio Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship (2019), a United States Artist Fellowship (2018), a Guggenheim Fellowship and a COLA Grant (2017) and a Creative Capital Award (2015). Their work has been featured in New York Times, Boston Globe, Artforum, Hyperallergic, Wired, The Guardian, TDR, Performance Research, Art Journal and was the subject of the monograph Cassils published by MU Eindhoven 92015) and their new catalog Solutions, is published by the Station Museum of Contemporary Art, TX (2020). Cassils is an Associate Professor in Sculpture and Integrated Practices at PRATT Institute. Cassils visit is co-sponsored by the Office of Inclusive Excellence and the Departments of Theatre and Dance, Global Gender and Sexuality Studies and the Queer Studies Research Workshop.
- https://www.cassils.net
- CASSILS is a transgender artist who makes their own body the material and protagonist of their performances. Cassils's art contemplates the history(s) of LGBTQI+ violence, representation, struggle and survival. Cassils has had recent solo exhibitions at HOME Manchester, Station Museum of Contemporary Art, Perth Institute for Contemporary Arts, Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, NYC; Institute for Contemporary Art, AU; Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts; School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston; Bemis Center, Omaha; MU Eindhoven, Netherlands. They are the recipient of the National Creation Fund (2022), a 2020 Fleck Residency from the Banff Center for the Arts, a Princeton Lewis Artist Fellowship finalist (2020), a Villa Bellagio Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship (2019), a United States Artist Fellowship (2018), a Guggenheim Fellowship and a COLA Grant (2017) and a Creative Capital Award (2015). Their work has been featured in New York Times, Boston Globe, Artforum, Hyperallergic, Wired, The Guardian, TDR, Performance Research, Art Journal and was the subject of the monograph Cassils published by MU Eindhoven 92015) and their new catalog Solutions, is published by the Station Museum of Contemporary Art, TX (2020). Cassils is an Associate Professor in Sculpture and Integrated Practices at PRATT Institute. Cassils visit is co-sponsored by the Office of Inclusive Excellence and the Departments of Theatre and Dance, Global Gender and Sexuality Studies and the Queer Studies Research Workshop.
- 11/21 • Adham Faramawy- virtual
- Adham Faramawy is an artist based in London. Their work spans media including moving image, sculptural installation, and print, thinking through issues of materiality, touch, and toxic embodiment to question ideas of the natural in relation to marginalized communities. They lecture at both Goldsmiths University in London and Ruskin School of Art in Oxford. Faramawy’s work has been exhibited in solo shows at The Bluecoat, Liverpool, and Niru Ratnam Gallery, London, and in group shows at Whitechapel Gallery, Somerset House, and Serpentine Gallery in London. In 2018 they presented a show on the body and VR for BBC Radio 4. In 2019 they premiered their video piece Skin Flick at a screening at Tate Britain dedicated to their work. In 2022 they performed their first live work as part of the Serpentine Ecologies program Back to Earth. They were shortlisted for the Jarman Award in 2017 and 2021. Faramawy is featured in UB Art Galleries exhibition “I don’t know you like that: The Bodywork of Hospitality” guest curated by Sylvie Fortin November 2022 — May 2023. Talk co-sponsored by UB Art Galleries.
- https://adhamfaramawy.com
- Adham Faramawy is an artist based in London. Their work spans media including moving image, sculptural installation, and print, thinking through issues of materiality, touch, and toxic embodiment to question ideas of the natural in relation to marginalized communities. They lecture at both Goldsmiths University in London and Ruskin School of Art in Oxford. Faramawy’s work has been exhibited in solo shows at The Bluecoat, Liverpool, and Niru Ratnam Gallery, London, and in group shows at Whitechapel Gallery, Somerset House, and Serpentine Gallery in London. In 2018 they presented a show on the body and VR for BBC Radio 4. In 2019 they premiered their video piece Skin Flick at a screening at Tate Britain dedicated to their work. In 2022 they performed their first live work as part of the Serpentine Ecologies program Back to Earth. They were shortlisted for the Jarman Award in 2017 and 2021. Faramawy is featured in UB Art Galleries exhibition “I don’t know you like that: The Bodywork of Hospitality” guest curated by Sylvie Fortin November 2022 — May 2023. Talk co-sponsored by UB Art Galleries.
- 11/28 • xtine burrough
- xtine burrough (x/x or she/her) is a media artist. Her projects center on bringing visibility to women’s experiences, invisible labor, and the dehumanizing effects of capitalism. x creates participatory works crafted for the web browser, the media wall, or person-to-person exchange. She also creates printed etchings, engravings, and hybrid digital transfer prints with alternative photographic processes. Her works have been catalogued across various genres such as electronic literature, socially-engaged art, time-based media, interactive media art, and printmaking. xtine uses remix practices such as appropriation, juxtaposition, and computation in the construction of digital poetry. Works for the screen subvert large data sets, reimagine archives, and intervene on platforms such as Amazon.com’s Mechanical Turk, online communities like YouTube, and public pay platforms such as Venmo. xtine is professor in the School of Arts, Technology, and Emerging Communication (ATEC) at The University of Texas at Dallas
- 12/5 • Ilona Gaynor
- Ilona Gaynor works across photography, narrative texts, schemata, objects and film. Her work is drawn from the methods and histories of a wide range of research and disciplines: from design, architecture, literature, theatre and cinema, to the histories of labour, forensic science, risk management and insurance. Using the language and methods from non-visual enterprises such as law and finance, her work seeks to retool the operable systems of these subsequent languages, institutions and power structures as a mode of artistic research and production. She is regularly invited to speak, write and teach, and her work has been exhibited, published and screened internationally. She is assistant professor in the Department of Art.
- http://ilonagaynor.com