FATE NEXT/NOW
/FATE 2025 - NEXT/NOW
March 17th - April 18th
Gillespie Gallery, Art and Design Building, Fairfax, VA
What is FATE?
FATE stands for Foundations in Art: Theory and Education. It is a national association dedicated to the promotion of excellence in the development and teaching of college-level foundation courses in studio, design, and art history.
FATE 2025 CONFERENCE - NEXT/NOW
The 2025 FATE Conference will challenge the established structures and assumptions that form our current understanding of what a foundational education in the arts is supposed to be. What tools have we developed teaching in a pandemic and “post” pandemic environment to better serve how students learn NOW? How might we project reimagined structures into the future to better build the NEXT supportive, inquisitive, and inclusive educational environments?
Artists and Educators are already doing amazing work to challenge traditional/status quo thinking of Foundations. We can learn from these contemporary moments of transformation to effect wider change. What are we doing NOW that shifts, extends, and bends what it means to engage new art students in contemporary making, doing, and thinking? The NEXT/NOW is an attempt to conjure, in the present, the tools our students will need to build sustainable practices in their rapidly changing worlds.
CURATOR - SHELDON SCOTT
Artist Sheldon Scott mines his experiences growing up in the Gullah/Geechee South and his background in storytelling to examine the Black Male form with particular emphasis on biases of usability and expendability in relation to constructs of race, economics, and sexuality. Scott’s works have been presented at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC; Katzen Museum of Art at American University, Perez Art Museum Miami, Kemper Museum of Art, St. Louis and others. He’s in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Washington, DC, the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, New Orleans, LA; the Nasher Museum of Art, Durham NC and the Smithsonian American Art Museum. He is a former resident at the Headlands Center for the Arts Threshold Fellowship and the Aspen Institute’s ESG Summit. He recently served as the Global Head of Purpose at Eaton Workshop and serves on the boards of Teaching for Change, Transformer, Solas Nua, and Woolly Mammoth Theatre.
Scott is represented by ConnerSmith.
CURATORIAL STATEMENT
“Next/Now” regards the importance of What we teach and How we teach. The process of giving and receiving systematic instruction is the framework for liberation. The understanding of our Past, the contemplation of our Present, and the aspiration of our Future both informs and demands our humanity.
This exhibition-as-stream-of-consciousness arrays works that reflect the contemplation of artists and educators. Varied media used to express these ideas are diverse in both materials and utility, and by virtue expands accessibility. Video, Sculpture, Installation, Photography, and Painting all present new pathways that, as expressed by FATE, “challenge traditional/status quo thinking of Foundations,” creating a foundation for practices that will project the Next and protect the Now.
INSTALLATION VIEWS
EXHIBITING ARTISTS
Nicole Condon-Shih is an artist and educator whose research-based practice explores the intersection of art, science, and technology. Her work examines the dichotomy between the microscopic and macroscopic, using it as a lens to consider biological systems, environmental urgencies, and our evolving relationship with nature and future ecosystems. She has exhibited internationally, including at the Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism & Architecture in Hong Kong and the B3 Biennale of the Moving Image in Beijing. Her projects have been commissioned by Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, and collected by Summa Health Systems, among others. Condon-Shih is an Associate Professor and Division Chair of Foundation at the Cleveland Institute of Art. Previously, she developed the International Foundation Course at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, China. She holds an M.F.A. from Hunter College, City University of New York, and a B.F.A. from Cornell University. Her art practice continually informs her teaching, just as teaching is integral to her practice as an artist, researcher, and academic leader.
Artist Statement
Lichen Lattice explores the profound lessons of lichen, a resilient organism capable of thriving in extreme environments, including outer space. By examining its microscopic and macroscopic structures, symbiotic relationships, and adaptability, the work visualizes lichen’s intricate networks and challenges our understanding of coexistence with nature. Expanding beyond terrestrial ecosystems, Lichen Lattice envisions a speculative future where lichen—renowned for its resilience—becomes an agent of interplanetary colonization. Fluorescent laser-engraved acrylic drawings of microscopic structures overlap with dynamic vinyl shapes, evoking lichen-laden asteroids dispersing life across the cosmos and dissolving the boundaries between Earth’s ecosystems and extraterrestrial possibilities. Ultimately, this body of work invites reflection on lichen’s role in shaping ecosystems and its potential to influence future environments—both on Earth and beyond.
Yvette L. Cummings Arendt resides in the American South where she is currently Associate Professor of Visual Arts in Painting/Drawing and Foundations Coordinator at Coastal Carolina University in Conway, South Carolina. Arendt holds a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Cincinnati’s School of Design, Art, Architecture, and Planning in Cincinnati, Ohio. Her work can be found in both public and private collections and has been exhibited in numerous group and solo exhibitions internationally and throughout the south and midwest of the United States. Arendt was selected as the inaugural solo exhibition, What is Withheld, for the international artist group, Art Mums United, based in the Czech Republic. Among her many awards, Yvette was a finalist in the Women’s United Art Prize 2022, received an honorable mention in 2021, and was awarded First Place in the Disrupted Realism exhibition at Buckham Gallery in Flint, MI juried by John Seed. Arendt has been featured in the 701 Center for Contemporary Art South Carolina Biennial multiple times, was winner of the 2016, 701 CCA Prize for artists under 40 in South Carolina, as well as Contemporary South at Visual Art Exchange in Raleigh, NC.
Artist Statement
I am deeply intrigued by how our bodies are shaped by the stories they carry, recognizing that they are not born as fixed truths. The complexity of bodily self-perception—formed through our experiences, emotional and physical biases, violations, and regulations—often escapes adequate expression or understanding in written language. The narratives in this work delve into the nature of trauma, transformation, and how memories become imprinted on the body. As Nietzsche once said, “If something is to stay in the memory, it must be burned in: only that which never ceases to hurt stays in the memory.” While pain may indeed burn itself into our minds, we are not condemned to perpetually suffer its wounds. Through witnessing and understanding, we can transcend this suffering and reclaim our power. Bearing witness offers insight into the way memory functions, even when it fades or is repressed. The body will always reveal the truth of the self—both as an intimate, lived experience and as something external, confronting and challenging. In confronting themes of gender subordination, this work reclaims position and agency.
Adam Farcus is an activist, artist, curator, feminist, organizer, poet, quasi-linguist, teacher, and writer. Farcus received their MFA from the University of Illinois at Chicago, BFA from Illinois State University, and AA from Joliet Junior College. They currently serve on the Foundations in Art, Theory and Education (FATE) board and participate in the Climate Psychological Alliance. Their work has been exhibited at numerous venues, including the Modern Museum of Art Fort Worth; Vox Populi, Philadelphia; the American University Museum; and the Advance Art Museum in Changsha, China. Farcus’s academic writing has been published in Art Education and the Journal of Second Language Writing and their creative writing has been published in Rattle: A Journal at the Convergence of Art and Writing and Funny Looking Dog Quarterly among others. Farcus is the director of Lease Agreement, an alternative and nomadic curatorial project, and they are the Studio Foundations Coordinator and Assistant Professor of Instruction at the University of South Florida.
Artist Statement
Through poetic sleight of hand, my work investigates the negative emotional ramifications of and positive emotional responses to climate change. Language, or signs, are a common medium in my work, though the ideas for what I create dictate the materials and forms I use. Many of my works have a purposeful ambiguity created through abstraction and juxtaposition which point toward the often unsettling and chaotic state of our planet and society.
The social-political climate and dire environmental state of our society cause specific kinds of fear, anxiety, complacency, and hopelessness that are stultifying. In opposition to and persistence against these emotions, my work offers viewers, participants, and collaborators a physical embodiment of these emotions and a kind of care. My goal is to instill a complex emotional relationship with the phenomena. Thereby, my works skirt the conceptual divide between care and negative emotions, often intermixing in installations to reflect the constant oscillation between the forces.
I approach the concerns of climate change from a phenomenological point of view. Phenomenology offers us a lens to understand how phenomenon that permeate our culture, such as climate change, should not be accepted as things as they are or pre-determined outcomes; rather, they are understood as constructed and institutionalized. It is my goal as an artist to challenge these constructions and institutions by laying bare the reality of their manufacture and existence, provide creative tools by which people can persist and protest these institutions, and give space to a form of respite from them. The purpose of my work is to ask viewers not to ignore climate change or its effects, but to confront their fears and anxieties, acknowledge how we are part of the issues, and find motivation and strength to be part of the solutions.
Wake
Wake is made with flowers that were discarded or lost from cemeteries and clinkers. Clinkers are one of the byproducts of coal-fired power plants. These chunks of porous stone are created when the hopper used to burn the coal is not sufficiently heated. Wake functions as a memorial to the idea of climate-driven loss in our world and lives, otherwise known as the psychoterratic emotion of “ecological grief.”
Union
Made of found used gloves, Union speaks to the power found in collectivity and invisible labor.
Jonathan Clyde Frey is an artist and designer whose work broadly explores the influences of ideology on contemporary culture and national identity. Jonathan has earned degrees in art and design from the University of Dayton, the University of Florida, and Pratt Institute. He is currently an Associate Professor of Art at Bucknell University.
Artist Statement
My recent work plays with the structures of games and language to explore various aspects of cultural and national identity. Through my artistic gestures and depictions, I hope to open up dialogues for reconsidering the one-dimensional rhetoric that often defines what it means to be American.
Hangman [ˈhaNGmən, -ˌman] — a guessing game where players try to decipher an unknown word, phrase or sentence within a set number of turns by randomly or systematically selecting letters or numbers. Failed attempts are recorded by drawing a gallows, and someone hanging from it, line by line.
The missing text (if you can figure it out) serves as a reminder that our country often fails to live up to the ideals it claims to hold.
Miles Halpern has taught drawing, painting, and 2D Design at Kishwaukee College since 2007. He received his MFA in Painting from Pennsylvania State University in 2006.
Artist Statement
I am a multimedia artist, illustrator, and teacher, with an emphasis in drawing, painting, and collage. In my Synthesis series I explore human adaptation into hybridized subjects as a means of coping and survival to trying and isolating times. Comfort comes from re-imagining existence, escapism, and expression in subjects that are both whimsical, enduring, and nurturing. Using the human figure and self-portraiture as a subject I often reference my immediate family and friends in my work to help me reflect on time, my relationships, my place in society and connect with and manage my feelings. Bodies are beautiful, humble, personal, sexy, embarrassing, and important. Figures may be immersed in narrative or exist in the moment and frequently undergo alterations and metamorphosis to explore symbolic connections and aspirational ideas I apply onto my subjects. My work has a domestic quality to the point that houseplants, mail, my immediate family, or things growing in my garden may be a point of inspiration or art material. I hope that this personal approach makes my work relatable, authentic, and connects to those who see it.
Synthesis Series (Golden Ball, Kale Yeah!, and Prickly Pair)
color pencil, watercolor, ink on polyester film, 12x9” each, 2024
Alex Hanson is an interdisciplinary artist from the Midwest. He received his MFA from the University of Iowa and BFA from the University of Minnesota - Duluth. He has held various academic positions and is currently an Assistant Professor at Sonoma State University. He has had the opportunity to complete works on rocky cliff sides in the rain; on top of a frozen lake in the dead of winter; and at the highest point in the very flat state of Oklahoma. Alex has exhibited nationally and internationally and has been awarded fellowships and residencies at artist in residence programs: I-Park, VSC, Yaddo, Wassaic, Stove Works, among others.
Artist Statement
Much of my work has taken the form of large-scale installations that are a ways to worry out loud about a rapidly changing planet. Anxiety about how we take part in destroying a world it is in our best interest to preserve is something that overcomes me often: especially as an American, a consumer, and a sculptor. Since the beginning of the pandemic, I’ve begun making small, discrete works made of wood. These objects vary in what they depict, evoke or are meant to do, but I think a question at the core of the project is:
“What does it mean to make stuff in a world that is already so full of things?”
Or
“Which ocean will my work end up in in 1000 years?”
Or
“Can anyone hear me?”
Or
“How long will it take my would-be grandchildren to sell the last of my studio equipment after my will is read?”
Or
“When will I actually turn into my dad?”
I want to know what joy is and how to find a real and lasting version of it. I use sculpture as a way to reconsider the rules for living a good life exemplified by good decisions; but what is right and what is wrong is never so simple. I want to be the person to shake people off the fence, not just so I can watch them fall, but so I can catch them before they hit the ground.
Pelicans Eat Anything (collection)
Ron Hollingshead is an artist, curator, lecturer, and educator. He received an MFA in sculpture at West Virginia University. He has taught at WVU, Shepherd University, and in the W.A.S.H. (Workshop in Art Studio and History) program at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas. Using his personal experience as a springboard, Hollingshead wryly confronts the universal struggle with injury, disease, pain, and treatment. He has exhibited his work extensively in the United States, with shows in Maryland, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, and West Virginia and internationally in Ireland, Mexico, and New Zealand. Hollingshead’s sculptural and mixed-media work can be found in the permanent collections of The International Museum for Collage, Assemblage, and Construction (Mexico), The Art House Gallery (Virginia), and in private collections.
Treatment Series
The work in this series, Treatment, is in reaction to the recent passing of my mother (Varena Hollingshead, August 20, 1947 - May 26, 2024.) The care she received in the hospital, assisted living facility, nursing home, and finally hospice, was extensive and done with kindness, however it could not stop her inevitable death. Her absence leaves an emptiness that cannot be filled.
Treatment endeavors to express that feeling of loss, and grief, after a beloved’s fight against disease ends.
I replace objects of healing intention with clear plastic shapes to accentuate their futility. As family, we too become, unavoidably, ineffectual.
I,V.
Oversized I.V. bags, cut from clear acrylic, hang from the pole hard and empty, chest high, they are a pair of useless lungs. In the title I,V., the “V” is nod to my mother's name, Varena. The “I” alludes to the chance that I may look above me and see those empty bags one day.
I.V. pole, acrylic, free standing
Monitor
Monitor is made of recordings I took on my mother’s last trip to the hospital. The leads stuck to her, and others, draw lines up to beeping machines that observe the patients. All the different sounds accumulate to create an uncanny soundtrack, “music”.
This eerie melody calls out to prove their witness—testimony to their vigilance. You are seen. You are not alone.
Sound, 2 Small Speakers
To listen to this piece, we invite you to please visit us at the Gillespie Gallery.
Chris Ireland is an exhibiting artist and educator, originally from Cleveland, OH. Chris has been interested in photography ever since he risked being grounded as a child when he took his mother’s cherished 35mm Canon AE-1 camera to school without her permission. She not only didn’t ground him but supported his education that led to a BFA in Photography from the Cleveland Institute of Art (2003) and an MFA in Digital Media at Washington State University (2007).
His current research is based on representations of family and personal experience through the vernacular of photography. His works have been featured in exhibitions at numerous venues both nationally and internationally, including the Center of Contemporary Art in Seattle, WA, the Colorado Photographic Arts Center in Denver, CO, Filter Photo Space in Chicago, IL, Umbrella Arts Gallery in New York, NY, the San Antonio Public Library, and the Houston Center for Photography.
Ireland lives and works in the Fort Worth, TX area. He currently heads the Department of Visual Arts & Design at Tarleton State University, and teaches courses in digital imaging and new media.
Artist statement
Ghosts are just old houses dreaming of people to give them a trace of history and meaning. The more absent and discarded these images of dwellings are, the more dedicated my search for meaning in them becomes. The images used in my work come from databases of images, real estate sites, social media, and archives. Created from multiple images captured in a variety of spaces (and non spaces), each composition is shaped slowly, over time, layer by layer, to replicate a mental experience. The work probes my relationship to home, marked by the loss of its certainties and an overall sense of placelessness. Fragmented images, full of overlaps and distortion, are like a corrupted hard drive that dreams of a place to return to.
Urkhammer, OH Series
(Selection of 6 photographs, 11”x17” each)
Urkhammer was a small mid-western which is said to have vanished without a trace in 1928. There is no recorded history of this town outside of stories passed on through the decades. These images are inspired by my own search for places and stories that I remember or have been told about through my parents and grandparents. They are memories of a place, and those memories are fading.
Samara Johnson was born and raised in Moose Pass, Alaska. She holds an MFA in Drawing and Painting from the University of Colorado at Boulder, a BFA in Drawing and Painting, and a BA in French from Sonoma State University. Samara’s work is deeply influenced by her upbringing in Alaska, where she developed a profound connection to the natural world, inspiring her use of organic materials such as wool and horsehair in her art. She believes that creating art with these materials allows for a deeper connection to the emotional intelligence of animals and the artistic communities that have come before us. Beyond her artistic practice, Samara engages with her community as both an academic and a volunteer. She is a dedicated educator, having taught at various institutions, including the University of Colorado at Boulder, Metropolitan State University, and the University of Wyoming, where she currently serves as an Assistant Lecturer. Additionally, she volunteers as a horse handler in equine therapy and has taught numerous community art workshops. Her work has been exhibited nationally, including at the Arvada Center for the Arts, the Healdsburg Center for the Arts, and the Center for Visual Arts in Denver. Samara now resides in Laramie, Wyoming, where she continues to teach at the University of Wyoming, create, and contribute to her community.
Inner workings of the human body and mind gather throughout the space, reflecting a desire to see beneath the surface. Amorphous shapes represent fascia, the vagus nerve, and internal tissues, capturing the visceral reality of both human and non-human bodies. Through techniques like ripping, layering, and stitching, the forms embody the Polyvagal Theory, suggesting healing of trauma through safe connections that reshape the nervous system’s response to perceived threats.
Incorporating organic materials from prey and herd animals, such as sheep’s wool and horsehair from equine therapy sessions, alongside inorganic elements that abstractly mimic bodily tissues, the network of pieces symbolizes the interplay between vulnerability and danger. This blend challenges conventional thinking, inviting viewers to engage with an inside-out perspective that draws on the heightened sensitivity of prey animals, whose instincts are finely tuned to survival.
By merging these diverse materials, a hybrid landscape presents where life and death intersect, reflecting the dual experience of being human and animal. The work embodies a psychological topography, evoking both the ancient and contemporary understandings of trauma and survival. It navigates the beauty and horror found in exploring the unknown, from the depths of our own bodies to the mysteries surrounding our mortality.
Vaguely Familiar has the appearance of an animal hide, but is only vaguely representative of a mammal, with emphasis on the Vagus Nerve, which runs down the body and interprets the safety of one’s environment through signals that pass to the brain, such as breathing, blood flow, and activity.
This translation of information is important in many ways, and is integral in understanding Polyvagal Theory, which supports the idea that humans can heal from traumas by exposing themselves to safe situations while revisiting past scars.
Therapy animals often help with this healing, as they can help the human co-regulate with their own nervous systems through the mutual release of Oxytocin and breathwork, among other activities.
The piece accentuates vulnerability in its fleshy animal hide, as well as the importance of the Vagus Nerve, as it sits on top, and must be accessed first in order to begin the healing, even though it is something that we will never see in our own bodies.
Mallory Kimmel is an interdisciplinary artist, designer and writer who makes socially engaged work addressing and eradicating exclusionary design practices in the built environment. She received her MFA from California College of the Arts, and teaches design and sculpture in the School of Art at George Mason University and American University. Kimmel serves on the Design Committee for The College Art Association. Her works have been exhibited in The U.S. State Department Inaugural Gallery, The University of Maryland Clarvit Courtyard, The Umbrella Art Fair, The Peale Baltimore’s Community Museum, and Minnesota Street Projects. Kimmel's writing has been published by E-flux, The George Washington University Museum and The Textile Museum, and BmoreArt Magazine.
Artist statement
As a social practice artist, I make art across media to disrupt exploitative practices, redact hostile design, and create opportunities to foster rest and healing to promote human connection. Through the process of object making, performance, theoretical writing, a community cry hotline, and curation, I use my practice to dethrone political meta-narratives. I design opportunities for rest, gathering, and practicing togetherness to provide moments of respite from the industrial capitalist agenda that keeps us trapped in isolation. Following the pandemic, we saw the power of being in a community and it is through the process of connection-making that my practice finds ground.
Furniture, curation, and the built environment choreograph our bodies in space. I choose to work in these forms to reshape public spaces to center rest and healing as a public and communal practice. Performance is employed as satire to critique over-optimization in design as a positive feedback loop for bandwagoning consumerism. The performances also model the possible means of connection that could become normalized in society. My performances illustrate companionship, stewardship, and the ongoing practice of closeness with others, objects, and the natural world.
Njeri Kinuthia was born and raised in Kenya. She received her bachelor’s degree in Fashion Design from Machakos University, Kenya. Njeri moved to the U.S. in 2021 to pursue her MFA at the University of Central Florida, funded by the Provost's Fellowship Award. Her artistic merit has been recognized with awards, including the 2024 Florida Prize in Contemporary Art People’s Choice Award, the 2024 University of Central Florida Outstanding Graduate Creative Research, the 2023 Éclat Law Prize, the 2023 United Arts Public Art Award, the 2023 Innovation in Arts Award, among others. Njeri has exhibited her work in various shows and galleries, including the 2024 Florida Prize at the Orlando Museum of Art, and solo exhibitions around Florida. She has also showcased her art in other states including New York and South Carolina as well as Kenya and Norway. Njeri is also an Art Educator teaching at the University of Central Florida. Her work explores themes of self-reflection, feminism, and the suppression of women perpetuated by cultural and societal norms. Njeri has also shared her insights through artist talks and interviews, further contributing to the discourse on the role of art in society.
Artist statement
How does culture shape who we are? This question drives my work, confronting the institutionalized cultural and political norms that dictate women's identity and sexuality. Through self-portraiture, I explore my own identity and experiences growing up in Kenya. I use culturally significant fabrics to go beyond aesthetics, sparking symbolic dialogue on the role of culture in molding us. In my recent work, creating patchwork tapestries from fabrics donated by women surrounding me symbolizes unity amidst the current political climate.
Nudity in my work embodies vulnerability, further challenging the constraints that society imposes on women. Through a diverse range of mediums, I reveal the intricate relationship between cultural traditions and personal identity. I draw inspiration from African fabrics, traditional architecture, cathedrals, and stained glass. With a background in Fashion Design, I enjoy working with textiles and incorporating textile patterns into my work through collage and drawing. I welcome viewers into a broader conversation on the liberation and autonomous expression of female identity, prompting them to question the boundaries imposed upon them by their cultural spheres.
Vazi langu, chaguo langu' is Swahili for “My Dress, My Choice”.
This phrase was popularized in Kenya in 2015 when women protested against being stripped naked for wearing revealing clothes in the streets of Nairobi. Wearing shorts here in the US is a celebration of my freedom. This mixed media portrait is part of a series that document the first time I wore short shorts when I landed in the US.
Forrest Lawson is based outside of Washington DC, where they work independently as an artist as well as serve as the Printmaking and Letterpress Studio Manager at George Mason University. They have exhibited and garnered acclaim nationally and internationally, culminating in being named the Grand Prize winner of ArtFields in 2019 and a resident artist at Chautauqua Institution in 2022. Forrest's work is recognized for its exploration of Queer blood, delving into the complexities of queerness in the face of political and societal adversity. They received their Undergraduate Degree from The University of Central Florida and a Masters in Fine Arts from The University of Georgia, with interdisciplinary recognition amongst the arts and humanities which includes work within Gender Studies and Queer Theory as well as the visual arts. Forrest continues to address inequity amongst the intersections of oppression that affect the Queer community, and challenges, sometimes antagonistically, viewers to confront and reflect upon issues of identity, power, and liberation or their complicity in heterosupremacy.
Artist statement
Exploring the visual power and material significance of space and queer architecture, as it relates to Queer bodies, is the primary focus of my research. Recently, I have become interested in disentangling a homogenized view of homophobia and how Queer experiences influence both the space Queer bodies are able to take up, and how Queer spaces operate outside of heteropatriarchy. Parsing out the disparate elements that make up and overlap between domestic and public space has informed my practice and informed my (mis)understandings of heterosupremic models of oppression, specifically within sites self-identified as Queer. Physical, emotional, and psychological abuses with disowned and disavowed queerness have collapsed on one another and do not operate as mutually exclusive sites of trauma. I use this lens to interrogate what it means to navigate space and how spaces inform the contours of the Queer body, and how much the body must resist and push back.
Sausage Fest examines the tension between queer existence and the spaces that reject it. A fragile childhood home, rendered in clear acrylic and bound by monofilament, suggests both protection and precarity or an architecture of conditional belonging. Cow intestines stuffed with gay pornography contort themselves throughout the ghostly form and consume queer desire, digesting it after it was expelled from the home. Here, the home becomes an agent of heterosupremacy, policing the boundaries of acceptable desire.
MJ Neuberger is an artist and educator whose creative practice explores decolonial embodiment through sculpture, installation, performance, public engagement, and interactive and image-based works.
Active in the multicultural salon A Gathering of the Tribes in New York, Neuberger solicited work as an editor and founding member of the minority caucus at the Village Voice that earned mention in bell hooks’ Teaching to Transgress.
Her creative practice has been recognized with grant funding from the Washington Project for the Arts and residencies at the Urban Soils Institute at Swale House and Creative Alliance. Working with cross-disciplinary collaborators as founder of the Great Wide Open, Neuberger also engages the public as Meeting Ground Projects co-founder and as board member of Social Art and Culture, an Aspen-Institute supported non-profit focused on using the arts to advance marginalized and underserved communities.
Neuberger has presented research at the Media Architecture Biennale, Florida State University’s 2024 Festival of Creative Arts, and multinational symposia, exhibiting internationally at Washington University in St. Louis as well as at A Gathering of the Tribes and Art Resources Transfer in New York and the Tephra Institute of Contemporary Art and the Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture in the Baltimore/Washington area.
She is currently visiting assistant professor in the School of Art at the University of North Carolina Greensboro.
Artist statement:
My creative work embraces the ground as site of resistance, as sanctuary within oppressive systems, and as witness to individual and shared vulnerability. I use the term to encompass the sensory and metaphysical phenomena of the natural world; embodied presence; and practices that reaffirm ties between the human and non-human world, creating sculpture, installation, and image-based works.
Fascinated by the carved indigenous warriors in my childhood living room and perplexed by my immigrant mother’s description of the figures, representing her fellow Filipinos, as “headhunters,” I’ve sourced my mother’s rejection of her indigenous self in the archive. Self Portrait as Bontoc Elder (After Jenks) and Self Portrait as Lowly Goddess (After Martin), 2023-25, combine early 20th century ethnographic images of Bontoc Igorot women with self-portraits, seeking to elevate ways of being rejected by putatively civilized cultures.
In The Ground Holds Everything lll (2024-25), an oval of dirt from the site where indigenous Filipinos were exhibited in an early 20th century human zoo becomes a screen upon which impressions made by the artist in her attempts to reoccupy a body abandoned in generational trauma are projected. The evidence of her prostrate form on soil taken from the site of the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair faces the image of the Igorot warrior whose likeness was used to promote the Philippine Exposition at the fair, honoring the natives whose sacred rituals were cast as savage spectacles by the fair’s organizers and acknowledging the impact such representations have had on Filipino identity.
Andrew Thompson, aka “AndyT”, is a sculptor & installation artist, educator, curator, musician, and labor organizer. Thompson grew up in Kansas City, MO and received his BFA in Sculpture from the Kansas City Art Institute. Thompson moved from Cowtown to Motown to receive his MFA in Sculpture from Cranbrook Academy of Art. He has been exhibiting his sculptures & installations throughout Southeast Michigan for two decades and won a Kresge Artist Fellowship in 2021. AndyT has helped to curate and coordinate shows as an exhibition committee member with a number of galleries, most recently with Detroit Artists Market. Thompson currently teaches full time as a Lecturer in the Stamps School of Art & Design at University of Michigan-Ann Arbor. He is a proud union member of the Lecturers’ Employee Organization (American Federation of Teachers, Michigan Local #6244), and serves as a steward and chair of LEO’s Communication Committee.
Artist statement
“Home of the Brave” is a collaborative flag with Jada Bowden, Michael Nagara & others featuring individualized iconography contained within a template of the US flag, constructed of DIY & craft materials. Working through collaborative means toward an aesthetic informed by knitivism, urban kitting, thread bombing, patchwork, and free collaboration, “Home of the Brave” makes a statement concerning the importance of diversity, and the shared and open nature of our American democracy.
Each component part of the flag (red & white stripes, the blue union, & “stars”) was handmade by different individuals and of materials of their choosing, but conforming to size specifications so the elements could accommodate one another within a whole; a whole informed by the proportions of elements for a personal use American flag (as opposed to official US flags, like those displayed for military funerals or on government property). The choice of the “personal” flag proportions was to engender and emphasize the notion of “we the people”, our own personal selves, as the basic, critical, constituent parts of the US democracy – in our own diverse, individuality.
Our analogy for the division of labor for the parts to form the piece was a potluck. We had a list of the component parts and participants could inform us which ones they wanted to take on. We preferred the flag’s stripes and union be made from scratch with yarn (supplied from the originating collective of collaborators), either knit, crocheted, or woven, but we left participants free to make their own technical choices within that range.
The symbols to take on the role of the stars in our US flag could be made of any material, though it was encouraged to use low-budget and easily accessible materials that could be stitched or pinned to the fabric of the blue union. Contributors were asked to create their own icon/symbol/logo that expresses their individuality or their belonging within a community that gives them strength to be who they are within their American context, instead of the standard white star (though not excluding it, if that was considered desirable by the participant).
This flag is meant to have a future, beyond one exhibit, as a continuing public statement. Though this project was originally instigated by Michael Nagara, Jada Bowden, and Andrew Thompson, we consider everyone who participates to be a full collaborator. This means that if participants find future exhibition opportunities and/or venues to share the work, we can pass the flag around as-needed expanding on or completing from older iterations, possibly with even more new collaborators.
Anthony Warnick investigates the intersection of social systems and capital. He lives and works in Manhattan, Kansas where he is an Assistant Professor of Art at Kansas State University. Warnick holds a MFA from the Cranbrook Academy of Art and a BFA from Minneapolis College of Art and Design. He works between digital media and sculpture producing works in media as varied as film, porcelain, software, and paper. These works have been exhibited nationally and internationally at Carnation Contemporary (Portland, OR), Ely Center of Contemporary Art (New Haven, CT), SPACES Gallery (Cleveland, OH), Museum of Contemporary Art (Detroit, MI), Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts (Grand Rapids, MI), Vox Populi (Philadelphia, PA), Concordia University (Montreal, Quebec), and CICA Museum (Gimpo-si, Gyeonggi-do, Korea). Warnick's work has been supported with residencies at SOMA (Mexico City), PADA (Barreiro, Portugal), Elsewhere (Greensboro, NC), Wassaic Project (Wassaic, NY), and Futurefarmers (San Francisco, CA).
Artist Statement
A red steel barricade, a Portuguese flag, a sardine griller, a stack of white tabloid bond paper, cotton fabric, ashes of a newspaper, 2x4s, topsoil, and vinyl pillow, seemingly disparate items, assembled to point the viewer towards the overlapping systems surrounding us. The systems I engage with range from labor and politics to criminal justice and news. I aim to make the viewer reconsider their position within these ubiquitous systems. I assemble my works from stacks of language, history, and materials. These objects retain a trace of the labor that created them, the history of the hands they passed through, and the circumstances they survived. In the studio, I play with words as often as ink and paper, and through combination and combustion, a poetics emerges. I present these experiments to the viewer perennially as stacks of everything from pixels to paper.
Su Yang holds a Ph.D. in visual, Asian cultural, and gender studies from the University of Melbourne (2019), an MFA in painting from the State University of New York at Buffalo (2014), and a BA in arts and crafts from the Academy of Arts and Design at Tsinghua University (2010). Her research examines the social, cultural, and political ideologies that shape "ideal female beauty" and their impact on women's identity, representation, and artistic production. Through painting, photography, video, and film, Yang’s work challenges patriarchal aesthetics in contemporary Chinese art and culture by critiquing the tendency in Chinese art criticism to confine women's artistic contributions within a decorative framework.
Yang’s works have been screened and exhibited internationally at venues such as SBS (Australia’s major broadcaster), the Melbourne International Film Festival, St Kilda Film Festival, the Victorian Pride Centre Theatrette, Federation Square Big Screen, the University of Melbourne, Lion Arts Centre, and ACMI cinemas (Australia); the Rhode Island International Film Festival, Anderson Gallery (New York), Houston Public Library, and Texas A&M University (Texas) (United States); OCAD University Art Museum and Toronto Reference Library (Canada); Shanghai M50 Creative Park (China); and La Muestra de Video Arte Faenza Screening (Colombia). Her film projects have won the Melbourne International Film Festival Powershorts Short Film Competition and the People of Color International Cultural Exchange in New York. She has also received the 11th Prospect Portrait Prize People’s Choice Award in South Australia.
Artist Statement
“Invisible Hands” serves as a metaphor for the ideologies that extend beyond cosmetic surgery, becoming visible forces that reshape women’s bodies. The metaphor embodies the pain inflicted by patriarchal ideals surrounding the concept of the “ideal” female. Women are repeatedly told that they are not good enough and that their efforts fall short. As a result, many are driven to desperate measures in attempts to conform to unrealistic expectations. The work further explores how patriarchal systems perpetuate the belief that women require external guidance to improve themselves.
Summer Zickefoose is an interdisciplinary artist residing in northeast Ohio. She received a BA in Art History and a BFA in Studio Art from the University of Iowa in 2000 and received an MFA in Multimedia Art and Ceramics from the University of Florida in 2004. Her sculptures, performances, videos, and installations have been exhibited both nationally and internationally. Summer has been an artist-in-residence at the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts in Nebraska City, Nebraska; Flaxart Studios in Belfast, Northern Ireland; and at the Field's Project in Oregon, Illinois. She also works with a performance art collaborative, The Brick Factory. They have organized two residencies around themes of ceramics and performance: Actions + Material and The Object’s Not the Point, at Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts in Newcastle, Maine. Zickefoose currently teaches ceramics, sculpture, fiber arts, foundations, and art history courses at Westminster College in New Wilmington, Pennsylvania.
Artist statement
The visual components of my work subtly manipulate familiar imagery. Decorative and accessible qualities of commonplace objects become useful veneers for exploring more raw human experiences. The relationship of object to body is also framed through function and interaction. A sculpture’s form may reflect a gestural movement or encourage interaction with others. Performative, temporary, and delicate objects are platforms for discovery and delight. Slight alterations are made to familiar experiences – a journal entry on the interior of a teacup or a phone’s screen seen through ceramic binoculars. Luring the viewer through comfort or curiosity, both discordant and meaningful experiences within the everyday can be discovered.
Intentionally crafting objects by hand provides layers of meaning, at times indicating hospitality or honor, but also offering a visible contrast to digital technology. Clay’s ability to mimic other materials, while simultaneously asserting both fragility and the organic, is put to use within sculptural series. Projects include detailed representations of objects whose functions are both critically necessary and unfortunately political. In others, the function appears benign on the surface, but additional imagery leads the viewer to understand the object’s specific visceral use.
Shouting Through the Distance
Clay sculptures are suspended from the ceiling and hung so that they may be looked or spoken into. The objects will amplify sound when used or simply suggest the amplification even if left in their silent suspension. The reimagining of familiar technology, though in more rudimentary and organic forms, hones in on the abstract and sensory desires that brought about their invention.
Across the Sea
A visual reference to antique nautical binoculars, modified to view a phone, upon which a slide show plays on a loop. The slides slowly align images of vessels that correspond with wealth and those with migration, desperation, and hope, all against the backdrop of the Mediterranean sea and coastline.