SURFACING
S U R FAC I NG
Graduate Study at the School of Art & Design at the University of Michigan
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The three-year MFA program at the University of Michigan School of Art & Design is designed for those students with an active creative practice who also want to engage with fields of knowledge beyond the cultures of art and design. Working within a top research university along a cultural corridor that extends from Toronto to Chicago, they exhibit, curate, teach, perform, network, explore, present, research, and collaborate. They receive full tuition funding, including support for international travel. And they conduct their creative work in fully equipped studios, assisted by software-loaded laptops and peripherals to enhance their creative production, research, and communications.
Capitalizing on the University’s over 200 departments and colleges, the School of Art & Design also offers four interdisciplinary degree programs: a four-year program with the Stephen M. Ross School of Business for a Master of Fine Arts and Master of Business Administration, a four-year program with the School of Information for a Master of Fine Arts and Master of Science in Information; a four-year program with the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning for a Master of Fine Arts and Master of Architecture; and the Rackham School of Graduate Studies’ interdisciplinary Design Science Ph.D.
This publication has been made possible by the School of Art & Design, Dean Bryan Rogers; and Associate Dean for Creative Work, Research and Graduate Education Brad Smith. S C H O O L O F A R T & D E S I G N AT T H E U N I V E R S I T Y O F M I C H I G A N www.art-design.umich.edu
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www.playgallery.org
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(734) 763 5247
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a&dgradinfo@umich.edu
ACING the UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
LE A BU LT REED ES SLIN GE R EMILIA J AVA N I C A JOHN K A NNE N BE RG AM ANDA LIL L E STO N YUAN M A Collin MCR A E M EG HAN RE Y N A R D JAM ES ROTZ
Surfacing presents the work of the nine graduates of the Master of Fine Arts program at the University of Michigan’s School of Art & Design in 2012. Within the pages of this book, layers of research, materials, and creative activities rise and give form to the compelling discoveries made by these artists in recent years. This book was conceived and art directed by the MFA graduates themselves, with special thanks to Professor David Chung, who guided the project from its inception.
B U LT
For many people, slavery elicits an image of a bygone era. Recollections of slave ships and antebellum plantations tend to dominate the current American psyche when discussing the enslavement of humans. When considering slavery, we tend to look back at history with a sense of disdain for what was considered a barbaric and inhumane time. These thoughts are often followed by a sense of pride for the progress that has been made in human rights. Yet, American slavery can still be found today. People are enslaved for various reasons, throughout the United States and within our own cities. Some are hidden from our gaze and others are hiding in plain sight.
I create paintings that appear opaque from a distance, yet hidden elements within the composition appear when the viewer steps in closer for a closer look. These hidden figures are placed within various urban vessels, set into seemingly mundane urban scenery. To create this effect, I paint onto Plexiglass, leaving strategic sections of the composition slightly transparent. Each painting becomes its own microcosm, a small world in and of itself with a view into a realm that is unknown to most. In this process I intend to physically mimic our complicity in this problem. If we decide to step in for a closer look, the opportunity for intervention becomes tangible. We can act or choose to look away.
E S S LI N G E R
I started weaving when i started writing. Words have always been threads, cloth, a text. The linear sequence of “words” belies their convoluted path: passing over and under, separating and binding back together, pulling away and pushing through, ultimately integrating their collective fragility in a larger organizational structure. Membrane. Filter. Threshold.
“In the ethnographic memoir, an author takes us back to the corner of his or her life in the field that was unusually vivid, full of affect, or framed by unique events. By narrowing the lens, these authors provide a window into their personal lives in the field, a focus which would not be possible in a full-length autobiography.” Barbara Tedlock.
VESTED FOR APOTROPAIC BREATH 2011
“From participant observation to the observation of participation: the emergence of narrative ethnography,” Journal of Anthropological Research. 47 (1), 1991: 77.
ABSTRACTIONS OF WEAVING
Stills from Nombril I, 2011
Test sleeve woven with rayon and dissolvable thread
Stills from “Under the Loom,” 2011
Some element of the process, of weaving leads me astray: the structure of the cloth, the ordering mechanism of the loom, the tensile strength of the thread lead to reconstructions of alternative vantage points...
Installation view of “Trans, Tranz, Travs, travrs traverse,” a durational performance, 96” x 96” x 240” 2010-2011.
Something shifts, sloughs, sifts or stains as a consequence of transitional movement. Learning a new language, becoming a parent, and assimilating to a foreign climate are all transitions. How do we measure them much less recognize when we’ve reached the threshold of a transitional benchmark? Locating the moment or nature of change happens in hindsight. the traces of this movement reveal more about the complexity of the process than we were able to perceive in the moment.
Reed Esslinger
WAITING Finding the place required a fair amount of asking and turning around and quick embarrassments of starting down the wrong alleyway and realizing (upon smelling hot oil and wilting chop-suey) that this was not where I could get my residency status approved. About 50 meters from the intersection of Rue Bons Enfants and Rue Augustin Archambaud was a wrought-iron gate, about 30 centimeters ajar. The rods, thick with layers of dark enamel were about the diameter of the swollen fingers that grasped them (hoping desperately that this was at last it). The vertical lines reached up somewhat higher than the residential lots to either side. The oval crest of a governmental entity anchored the dignity of this gate whose grandeur dwarfed the small cluster of wood paneled concrete buildings beyond it. The gate seemed not to open or close habitually, so I squeezed through, disregarding the potential reading of my actions as trespassing. Set within an overgrown courtyard, the cement driveway seemed to be crumbling back into the volcanic matter from which it was cast as it sloped down to the right. Although I glanced at the other buildings, all equally empty of life, my steps along the path coerced my body in the direction of the low rectangle at the end of the path. The building was awkwardly attempting to bridge the officialness of its office with the folkiness of its public through its architecture: this generic structure had a cheap tin imitation of the lace—like carved wood fringe—a reference to “Cases Créoles” the kind of wooden houses of early settlers of Réunion Island. Directly below this were the windows of the French doors which allowed a generous view into the plain interior: blank beige walls, a crowding of seats along the perimeter squeezed out of the center by several massive desks flush against each other creating a huge surface area but no practical access to their function much less the ability to traverse the room. I wondered how a pregnant woman would even approach what seemed to be the head desk. As my eyes adjusted from far to near sight, they discovered a piece of dimpled office paper with faded marker serving as the only indication that I had at last found my destination. The Sous-Préfecture of Saint Pierre. Hours of operation 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Mondays ONLY It was 6:40 — it was Monday — I had found it. As I held in the breath of satisfaction, scratchy footsteps of high heels braving that driveway stopped suddenly and then their owner brushed past my shoulder heading straight for the spot directly to the right of the door. Apparently this spot was ‘first in line’ and her sideways glance and clenched handbag confirmed her purpose. Other steps follow within seconds, it seems, as cattle let out of a coral. Perplexed at the rush (for there was an hour and a half before the doors would be unlocked) and never wanting to appear mindless in a herd, I scan the courtyard for a place to sit and go through my folder again. Bank account statement—check—notarized letter from landlords—
check—proof of employment—check—passport—check . . . I shuffle the pages, reordering them in an everevolving logic of organization, shifting papers almost as often as my heavy body on the chunk of concrete I had found to rest. The heat is stifling and imposing like the grandmère who heaps on thick blankets despite the searing skin of a feverish body; a heat intensified by the approaching mid morning sun from which those who have spent time, indeed lived within this volcanic crater from their birth, would repel, dash away, finding any barrier (the sports pages of the Journal de l’ile, the side of a building, a broad banana leaf) with which to block the very object of desire for many a pale vacationer. 10:36—The gates are rolled aside (they do move after all!) a wide, dark grey BMW ambles into the courtyard, tilts as it rolls towards the waiting group of people on the careening path. A middle age woman in a dark suit emerges tensely from the driver’s side, tugs down at her jacket’s hem, and gathers an armful of folders as she heads into the crowd. I adjust the strap supporting the bulge on my abdomen, contemplating following her now or waiting until the crowd thins. The air is tense as it is hot, bodies do not move out of her way, heads look up in relief and disgust as she fumbles with the keys and makes the assertion “No one may enter until I have set up my desk . . . in about 5 minutes.” Eyes roll. Sighs are pushed out of tense lips. Crossed arms tighten a little more. Finally we are permitted to enter and as if reversing the events of hours earlier, the crowd pushes inward, fighting for a good place in line. Eventually everyone has received a number, the dust settles, and nerves are internalized again. In this room masses of humid air hover around the shoulders of immobile bodies. I am seated third from the door along the western wall which is lined in its entirety with narrow-seated plastic chairs. The heat causes a geiser of sweat out of the pores upon even the slightest contact between the external sides of two arms at once fermenting my armpits as my limbs bolster my weak frame. There is no space between bodies, which have all generally assumed a slumped posture, reflecting their state of being: somewhere between sullen and anxious. Most of the people present seem to endure the slippery and itchy contact with each other—there are greater concerns at hand. The conversation in the room is kept to a low mumble between a couple across from where I am sitting, an occasional shriek from the infant in my lap or the insistent pleading of a toddler for coka or his sister’s plush nounou. By contrast the woman at the desk seems to bellow her instructions: “Non, Monsieur, you are going to have to come back with more sufficient evidence of your conjugal relations . . . ” “Excusez-moi, Mademoiselle, is there a WC here?” A low creaking of her seat and faint crease along side the corner of her mouth, the young Malagasy woman next to me presses her papers deep into her lower abdomen as she gestures with the other hand “Là-bàs.” She seems to be enduring the same general discomfort of knowing that her status is also quite literally in limbo.
J AVA N I CA
Red Blob Massacre A Silent Horror Film and Live Performance Maddy Blitz is a young woman with horrendouslooking teeth. Maddy’s nightmares of not fitting in clump together to form a giant RED BLOB that confronts her tormenters, eventually growing so big that it . . . .
Face Off Video Installation The face up close looks different than it does from far away. In a moment of intimacy, beauty transforms into vulnerability. This is a close-up portrait of my own face and the mark it leaves on a piece of white paper, an imprint similar to one left upon a pillowcase.
Die Tomato, Die!!! Performance Art A row of ripe tomatoes sits on a table in front of the audience. Front row audience members are provided with small plastic bags to protect themselves. To the drone of ambient horror sounds, a female described in the Midwest Theatre Review as a “satanic high priest disguised as a 1950s housewife� enters the scene, proceeding to destroy the tomatoes one by one with a claw hammer while a kitchen timer ticks away. The audience, consequently, is showered in fresh tomato juice.
Buoj iz Jeb: Professional Figure Model Interactive Performance Buoj iz Jeb is a professional figure model. At this particular art event, he set up shop right in the gallery windowsill, where he invited exhibition visitors and street passersby alike to sketch his naked body, taping their artwork to the window facing the street for the world to see.
KANNEN BERG
Sound Drawings John Kannenberg
AUDIO RECORDING
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THE PRESERVATION OF LISTENING
A LINE
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A RECORD OF ACTION
A DRAWING
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A RECORDING OF ACTIONS OVER TIME
DRAWING
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LISTENING
On Listening Listen. To listen is to “give attention,” as one dictionary meaning states. The act of listening is one of engaged compassion, a surrendering of one’s self to the never-ending sonic world around us—to the breeze that scatters dry leaves on an autumn afternoon; to the gravitational pull that causes waves to lap against a coastline; to the aesthetic mathematics that result in the composition of a melody; to the friend whose problems are temporarily eased by our willingness to attend to their utterances. In an era where daily life is thick with the bombardment of mediated information, the act of truly listening is a radical downshifting of expected priorities, a trap sidestepped. As Salomé Voegelin has stated, sound has been “sublimated to the visual and its linguistic structure” within Western culture’s hierarchical approach to the senses. Deep, attentive listening therefore begins to break sound out of this subservient position, frees it from the chains of vision. There is irony in the fact that sound has been subjugated by vision, yet linguistically the two senses can be interchangeable: “I see what you mean.” “I hear you.” Listening begets understanding. It defines the boundaries of a dark space. It resolves conflict. It is a paradoxically concrete yet poetic connection between our selves and our surroundings. As many have observed, we can’t turn off our sense of hearing; our bodies constantly hear, absorbing the sounds around us. Hearing may be ceaseless but without listening, we are directionless. Hearing is reflexive while listening is interpretive—a cognitive, communicative act. This cognition and communication are also inherent when we direct our ears inwards to listen to ourselves. According to Jean-Luc Nancy, “listening opens (itself) up to resonance and that resonance opens (itself) up to the self.” When we grant ourselves the respect of our own ear it affirms our true selves, the ones that actually resonate with the world at large—not the ones we construct to keep that world at bay. Within the self lies a set of powerful tools to help guide one along the creative path: insight, intuition, and instinct. As external listening offers one possible system of way finding, so internal or “intralistening” helps us find our own way, affirms the solitude of artistic pursuits, and offers us the encouragement to proceed in a manner that best supports our essential goals. Listening to our instincts is simultaneously an act of independent self-determinism and the key to unlocking how we relate to others, and others to us. Within each of us lies truth, if we only allow ourselves to listen to it.
Above Sound Drawing Diptych #1: Ambidextrous drawing for one hour, blindfolded and listening to a museum recording Previous page Ten minute sound drawing, mapping sounds to locations.
Details of blind listening drawings, ambidextrous mapping of sounds.
Collections: UMMA John Kannenberg
Collection 19: Every Seat in the Frankel WIng Galleries of the University of Michigan Museum of Art
MOTIVATIONS: FOLLOW THE URGE TO COLLECT. FIGHT THE URGE TO CONTROL. PROCESS 1: PHOTOGRAPH EVERYTHING IN AN ART MUSEUM THAT ISN’T ART. PROCESS 2: COMBINE LIKE OBJECTS AS WELL AS MULTIPLE VIEWS OF OBJECTS. PROCESS 3: INVITE OTHERS TO INTERPRET VISUAL COLLECTIONS AS SOUND.
On Collection Even in the post-digital age, the act of collection remains a profoundly human activity. Collectors live through their collections; the acquisition and organization of a select set of objects is a process that can help guide or even consume the collector’s activities based on the level of obsession involved. Every collector is an obsessive to a certain degree—collections would not exist if not for their coexistence with a related, consuming passion. Many factors contribute to the obsession/collection matrix. Although each collector’s reasons for his/her activity may vary, there are certain motivations that seem inherent: Order. Memory. Ownership. Completeness. Collections can be private, or they can be proudly displayed. Regardless of its relationship to a wider public, a collection represents a set of choices. The curation of a collection is a sustained act of discipline and organization. It represents a break from chaos, an attempt to control an unpredictable world by creating an orderly subset within that world. Collections take time. They are the result of a thought process put into motion. The resulting display alters our experience of time, captures time within the composed stasis of imposed order and considered display. Collections take discipline. The display of a collection is an act of artistic creation. Presentation evokes craft. If art is decision making, then a displayed collection—the result of endless sub-choices layered below choices—is the ultimate expression of this. Within a set of artful choices, an identity is carved out. The collector communicates with an audience, expresses theories about the world through a group of objects. Mute “things” develop voices both dependent and independent of their owner. A complex series of relationships merges things with people, materials with thoughts, ideas with lives. Even within the digital realm, a collection speaks volumes about its owner, and our interactions with digital objects reveal conversations within the realm of untouchable information. Digital collections explore new realms within the art of curation: Simultaneity. Malleability. Ephemerality. Temporality. Collections are no longer static hoards of dusty, purchasable material. The sound of something else, the image of something else, become translated into a new type of object: a chunk of pure data, a collection of numbers, a snippet of code—metadata as phenomenological description, a descriptor of an all-too human decision.
Above Collection 10: Every Vertical Info Text in the University of Michigan Museum of Art Below Collection 2: Every column’s capital and base in the Museum Apse
LILLESTON
woodblock print collage 45” x 39”
woodblock print collage 39” x 45”
Animal, a series of woodblock print collages I think of these as human parts: susceptible to gravity, discomfort, decay, growth, and adaptation. My desire to unveil and investigate is a need to see, first-hand, the parts that make us human, and understand the unbounded complexity that keeps my diaphragm contracting and heart beating. I watch surgeries, dissect cadavers, read textbooks and speak with anatomy researchers. I internalize this information by translating it into marks on wood. I pierce the wood’s surface by peeling, digging, cutting, and scraping. Organs and systems emerge from the surface. The splinters and shavings peel off in layers and blanket my studio floor, and I ruminate on what I’ve seen and experienced. As I translate the carving into prints, the layers of ink become saturated and heavy. Slowly, structures develop, details accumulate, and layers fuse. Images become multiples, and these multiples are cut and reformed using collage. Through this process, the imagery grows and adapts.
woodblock print collage 50” x 39”
woodblock print collage 50” x 39”
woodblock print collage 53” x 78”
MA
Video Installation - Dinner, 2010 Monk Ānanda, Buddha’s attendant asked, “It is said that the world is empty, the world is empty, lord. In what respect is it said that the world is empty?” The Buddha replied, “Insofar as it is empty of a self or of anything pertaining to a self: Thus it is said, Ānanda, that the world is empty.” — The Suñña Sutta From one side of the screen, the audience can tell by the shadow that two people on the other side of the screen are having dinner together. However,when they walk to the other side of the screen they discover that there is only one real person sitting there. The “other person” and the “dinner setting” are just projections. A wine glass sits on the table, joining the “projection world” and reality together with its own shadow. A small wide-angle mirror also sits on one corner of the table. Through this mirror, the person sitting by the table can see that his or her own shadow has become one part of the “projection world.” When the projected images fade out, only the real person, the wine glass, and the small mirror remain. Audience members are encouraged to walk into the environment and sit by the table to be one part of the work.
Test images on the early stage of this work.
Video Installation - Annoying, 2010 In big cities with large populations, people live very intensive lives. They have to compete aggressively to get all kinds of limited resources. During the struggling process, people always hurt, or are hurt by, others. This work aims to express the feeling of been trapped in this situation. The pieces in different shapes hold images in the air to create multiple layers in the environment. The viewer is able to walk into the installation and see that the view of the work keeps changing when he or she moves. This work is based on a study using installation to represent the surreal in the real space.
Video / Performance - The Spring Move, 2011 “The Spring Move� is a phenomenon that happens during the Chinese New Year. A large population takes all modes of transportation to go home in order to be with their families. It is said to be the largest seasonal migration in human history. 2,500,000,000 people move in 40 days, which amounts to 8 times the U.S. population all moving together.
Oil Painting - The Spring Move Oil Painting Series (Waiting), 2011
MC RAE
Left Stills from the animation “Stitch” Opposite Still from the animation “Rivalis”
REY N ARD
For five weeks in the Summer of 2010, I camped outside settlements along the west coast of Greenland, inside the Arctic Circle. In the least densely populated country in the world, I located myself in a vast, bleak landscape where the sun did not fall below the horizon for more than 25 days. Drawing on this experience and studies in art, architecture, and phenomenology, the One Year Daylight project explores the potential of physical objects to describe and recontextualize the phenomenon and experience of daylight. Using sunrise and sunset data for Uummannaq, Greenland, I designed models that interpret the periodic change in daylight that is experienced at this location over one year (far left, center). Image: “Midnight on Disko Bay�, Greenland. June 15, 2010.
Ongoing results of the “One Year Daylight” project offer viewers and participants objects and spaces that can be experienced as creative artworks, data visualizations, and immersive experiences. Iterations of the “One Year Daylight” project have been exhibited at Jean Paul Slusser Gallery (Ann Arbor, Michigan 2010), Urban Institute for Contemporary Art (Grand Rapids, Michigan 2011), and Aula Gallery (Imatra, Finland 2011).
Knowledge of the world tends to dissolve solidity of the world, leading to a perception of all that is infinitely minute, light, and mobile. — Italo Calvino
In a response to the disintegration of the physical surfaces of the site, “Still” elicits a momentary, heightened awareness of the phenomenal presence of light and space. The installation utilizes glow to maximize energy, subvert the architectural form of the site, and makes the empty space an immersive, embodied experience of space materialized with lightness. The conditions of peeling paint and crumbling plaster at the site evoke a visceral sense of disintegration and decay. The accumulation of these conditions suggest an imperceptibly slow transition from pristine, solid, architectural form to the infinitesimal fragments and dust that result from deterioration. In designing “Still”, we aim to capture this transition, frozen in time. In conceptualizing this project, we envision an installation that is infinitely large or small in scale, and that pushes the boundary between the visible and the invisible, challenging the extents of our visual perception. “Still” is an installation of thousands of glowing pieces of paper hovering in an otherwise dark room, with an area of approximately 400 square feet. The glowing particles change scale in terms of size and density, and undermine the viewer’s visual perception of distance and physical boundaries. “Still” is the result of a collaboration between Matt Acton, Patrick Ethen, Meghan Reynard, and Nate Smalligan. It was installed and on view in the Scrxipt Gallery in Flint, Michigan, in April 2010.
Top sixty still images from a film documenting movement through the “Still� installation space. Above a section diagram representing the intended placement for the glowing material. Right an overhead diagram representing the layout of the 400 sq. ft. gallery space and the intended placement of the glowing material.
_Tunnels
“Perhaps the oldest of philosophical problems is the problem of what is real and how we can know it, if we can know it.” From: Philosophy in the Flesh by Mark Johnson and George Lakoff
“Tunnels” addresses the relationship between participants and their immediate environment. In aggregate, the tunnels become a landscape that fills the participant’s field of vision, rather than a series of discrete objects. The result is a room perforated with light-filled tunnels that recede and extend the room space into and beyond the gallery floor. The experience of the space challenges the participants’ understanding of the extents of the room, and their notions of reality. The space itself functions as a metaphor for the unsettled and anxious mind. Left a single tunnel, 2011. Right drawings for design of tunnels, and design of installation for thesis exhibition, 2012.
ROTZ
The past is hidden somewhere outside the realm, beyond the reach of intellect, in some material object‌which we do not suspect. And as for that object, it depends on chance whether we come upon it or not before we ourselves must die. — Walter Benjamin, Arcades Project I have not seen what you have seen, nor do I know what you know, however, we are joined in our experiences of loneliness. These images are a recollection of one boy’s mental immurement. He does not need to describe it, for we understand. Remembering his father slamming his head into the fireplace. He knew what love felt like. Now, how to separate the two? How to experience the path when always looking back towards the past missing the hand extended. In childhood, sometime before he can remember, he had just enough strength to
escape into nothingness, and here he begins with more than he can handle and nothing upon which to stand. The boy had always been told to appreciate what he had been given: abandoned by the ones that were supposed to love unconditionally, left screaming in the car, punched, slapped, threatened with death and beatings, but he had food, clothing, and shelter. It made all the difference. As the years go on, the fight still remains with the memories hindering every movement, every thought, as his voice interrupts any joy or hope. The drudgery of it all.
L E A BU LT
REE D ESSLING ER
E MI L I A J AVA NIC A
Ann Arbor, MI
Gambier, OH
Santa Rosa, California
University of Michigan M.F.A. School of Art & Design 2012
University of Michigan M.F.A. School of Art & Design 2012
University of Michigan M.F.A. School of Art & Design 2012
Kendall College of Art and Design B.F.A. Photography 2005
Kenyon College, Gambier, OH B.A. Art 2005
Cornish College of the Arts B.F.A. Theater & Original Works, 2003
www.leabult.com
www.reedesslinger.com
www.emiliajavanica.com
Lea Bult incorporates photography, installation, and painting techniques to create her work. Her work explores difficult issues affecting contemporary American life, particularly human trafficking and slavery in America today. Lea has exhibited nationally and internationally and has been the recipient of several awards. She continues to pursue creative projects both locally and abroad.
Reed’s multidisciplinary practice emerges from the dialogue among the appendages of her creative practice: weaving, ethnographic writing, and performance. Her relationship to the physical world involves taking apart and reconstructing; engaging materials and texts in an inherently organic process of change. She is, at heart, a weaver although her loom may extend into the architecture, the strands may be coated with charcoal, and the fabric may be a wall of unraveling words or a fabric that dissolves altogether.
Emilia’s background in theater informs her current interdisciplinary practice which involves performance, puppetry, video and stop motion animation. Prior to her time at the School of Art & Design, Emilia resided in Yogyakarta, Indonesia for four years, where she helped establish a children’s library with the artist collective Taring Padi and collaborated with local artists across disciplines. Emilia thrives on facilitating dialogue and artistic exchange between people and cultures. This has manifested itself in interactive performance events and community-based arts initiatives. She currently cocurates an ongoing performance series at the Contemporary Art Institute Detroit (CAID) called The Performance Laboratory.
Investigating the definition and preservation of “Culture” (museums), the construct of language (linguistics), as well as various foreign languages (Italian, Arabic, French, Reunionese Creole), she travels to places where they can be embodied. Whether home or abroad, she dips into ethnographic writing in order to understand the social and psychological dynamics of cultural transition. Reed’s work strives to merge the distant with the intimate.
JOHN K A NNENBERG
AM A N DA LILLES TO N
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Fair Haven, NJ
Jinan, Shandong, China
University of Michigan M.F.A. School of Art & Design 2012
University of Michigan M.F.A. School of Art & Design 2012
University of Michigan M.F.A. School of Art & Design 2012
University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee B.F.A. Drawing & Painting 1993
Colorado College B.A. Biology, 2007
Beijing Institute of Graphic Communication B.F.A. 2006, M.A. 2009
www.johnkannenberg.com John’s work deals with themes including the sonics of space and place, the psychology of collection, the processes of making and observing art, and the human experience of time. His work has been presented extensively worldwide, including an installation of his suite of composed field recordings “A Sound Map of the Egyptian Museum, Cairo” at the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology’s annual conference in Corfu, Greece and a live appearance with Collin McRae at Notations.NL in Amsterdam. Since 2002, John has served as the creator, designer and curator of Stasisfield.com, a digital art space presenting works by international sound artists.
To further her education in ecology and evolutionary biology while at the University of Michigan, Lilleston has taken courses in evolutionary psychology, epidemiology, ecology and dendrology. She currently works in the Department of Anatomical Sciences in the University of Michigan Medical School.
YUA N M A
Yuan has a background in graphic design. She has explored video and installation art while studying in the MFA program at the University of Michigan.
CO L L IN MCR A E
MEGHAN R E Y NA R D
J A ME S ROTZ
Peoria, Illinois
Normal, Illinois
Gary, Indiana
University of Michigan M.F.A. School of Art & Design 2012
University of Michigan M.F.A. School of Art & Design 2012
University of Michigan M.F.A. School of Art & Design 2012
School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Post Baccalaureate Certificate, 2009
Wellesley College B.A. History + Studio Art, 2005
Indiana University B.F.A. Photography 2007
www.meghanreynard.com
www.jamesrotz.com
Miami University of Ohio B.A. in French Literature, 2006 B.A. in History of Art and Architecture, 2007
Meghan Reynard creates installations that utilize light to explore perceptions of natural and spatial phenomena. Developing from practices in art, architecture and design, and research into perceptual psychology, optics, and the environment, Meghan’s work addresses and responds to unease in the relationship between humans and their physical environment.
James use photographs to create creative nonfiction narratives investigating the local environment through memory, time, history, and the idea of non-space. Elements are drawn from personal histories, cultural history, philosophy concerning punishment, discipline, communal and personal space, identity, and conditioning. His photographs have been exhibited in galleries and museums nationally and internationally.
Collin draws on her experience studying music, language, and painting to create animations and installations that explore issues of isolation, community, and (mis) communication. Her animations draw on archival material, written and musical notational systems, phenomena related to sound vibrations and the properties of light and mirrors. During her international experience at the University of Michigan she studied Islamic calligraphy with master Şavaş Çevik in Istanbul, Turkey. Recently Collin has performed in the Notations 21 Music Festival in Amsterdam, NL, exhibited in the 17th International Symposium on Electronic Art in Istanbul, Turkey as well as the Pixilerations festival at the Rhode Island School of Design, and illustrated two books for a cultural conservation project with Mangyan indigenous communities in the Philippines through the NGO Plan International.
Meghan’s exhibition record includes group and solo shows, collaborations, and site-specific installations. Her work has been exhibited internationally in Finland, Spain, and Thailand, and nationally at the Sculpture Center in Cleveland, the Shoshana Wayne Gallery in Los Angeles, and the Urban Institute for Contemporary Art in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Graduate Study at the School of Art & Design at the University of Michigan
SURF S C HO O L
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The three-year MFA program at the University of Michigan School of Art & Design is designed for those students with an active creative practice who also want to engage with fields of knowledge beyond the cultures of art and design. Working within a top research university along a cultural corridor that extends from Toronto to Chicago, they exhibit, curate, teach, perform, network, explore, present, research, and collaborate. They receive full tuition funding, including support for international travel. And they conduct their creative work in fully equipped studios, assisted by software-loaded laptops and peripherals to enhance their creative production, research, and communications.
Capitalizing on the University’s over 200 departments and colleges, the School of Art & Design also offers four interdisciplinary degree programs: a four-year program with the Stephen M. Ross School of Business for a Master of Fine Arts and Master of Business Administration, a four-year program with the School of Information for a Master of Fine Arts and Master of Science in Information; a four-year program with the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning for a Master of Fine Arts and Master of Architecture; and the Rackham School of Graduate Studies’ interdisciplinary Design Science Ph.D.
This publication has been made possible by the School of Art & Design, Dean Bryan Rogers; and Associate Dean for Creative Work, Research and Graduate Education Brad Smith. S C H O O L O F A R T & D E S I G N AT T H E U N I V E R S I T Y O F M I C H I G A N www.art-design.umich.edu
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www.playgallery.org
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(734) 763 5247
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a&dgradinfo@umich.edu
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