Visual and Public Art Monterey Regional Waste Management District Artist-in-Residence Fellowship @ Last Change Mercantile.
Opening Reception & Artist Presentations: May 4, 2017
Exhibition Dates: May 1-8, 2017
The Visual and Public Art department is pleased to announce a reception and artist presentations for our second Artist-in-Residence Program in collaboration with the Monterey Regional Waste Management District (MRWMD) on Thursday, May 4, 2017, 2-4pm. The art exhibition will be on view May 1-May 8, 2017.
This artist-in-residence program is unique to the Visual and Public Art program, and the only one of its kind in the CSU system. This artist-in-residency (AIR) was implemented as a collaborative partnership between the Visual and Public Art (VPA) Program at CSUMB and the Monterey Regional Waste Management District (MRWMD) in 2016. There are several examples of AIR programs in the solid waste industry, and MRWMD has a history of providing opportunities for artists to create art from salvaged materials. This partnership will draw upon the expertise of CSUMB VPA faculty who along with MRWMD members select and mentor the student participants. The District (MRWMD) provides access to material salvaging, a stipend, and a place to work and create. Our current spring 2017 Artist-in-Residents are Vicky Osoria and Katherine Savage.
Vicky Osoria has created an installation that combines ceramics and found objects. Altares to my Person is a personal journey into finding her Mexican Trans identity amid the process of “coming out.” Osoria is interested in the effects of the history of colonization, the gender binary, body dysphoria, mental illness, and the violence that permeates those colonized by the Spanish, which imposed Catholic conservatism on the Indigenous. Osoria describes her Mexican-American heritage as being infused by homophobia and transphobia. In Indigenous Mexico, those who were both “Man” and “Woman” were seen as Shamans, Healers, Priestesses, and Goddesses. Trans people were once revered and lived to see past the age of 30, which is the average lifespan of Trans people in our current times.
An organism associated with another in symbiosis or mutualism is called a “symbion.” In her project Symbion, Katherine Savage is interested in our connection to environment, which includes lessons learned from resilience and regeneration in the face of destruction. Exploring the use of recycled materials, Savage has created a sculptural, mixed media, egg-shaped, outdoor installation that utilizes found metal, found objects, paper pulp, and ceramics that symbolizes the elements of earth, air, fire, water, and ether. It also serves as a portal between life and death, which is represented through a figure sculpture inside. This figural sculpture is made from homemade recycled paper, and cardboard material pressed into molds of her body. Symbion represents the healing properties of nature. Savage believes that the more we understand our universal connection, the more one feels at home in their body and on our planet.
