Intended Audience
Collaborative artist talk: Ruth Jeyaveeran and Elisa H. Hamilton
Mon. Oct. 30, 4:45-5:45 p.m., Glendening Annex
In a joint lecture, Jeyaveeran and Hamilton will present their creative work that involves fibers and textiles, multi-media interactive installation, and socially engaged, community-based art that emphasizes shared spaces and the hopeful examination of our everyday places, objects, and experiences. While in residence at SMCM they will be working on a collaborative installation project to be shown on campus at the conclusion of their residency.
Supported by grants from The Arts Alliance, Lecture and Fine Arts Committee, Department of Art, and the Artist House Residency Programs.
RUTH JEYAVEERAN
“My work is based on traditional material practices. Drawing from my experience as part of the South Asian diaspora, I use fiber and textiles to examine the relationship between our bodies, the objects we use, and the natural world to confront feelings of otherness, alienation, and dissociation. The act of sewing, tying, and tangling fibers together is my attempt to remake and repair connections with my body, my environment, and my community.”
Born in Lusaka, Zambia, and raised in the Midwest, RUTH JEYAVEERAN lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Recent exhibitions of her textiles, soft sculptures, and installations include, Felt Experience at the Brattleboro Museum, Communion, an installation at Main Window Dumbo and Amplify, a public art installation at the Queens Botanical Garden. Her solo show, Soft Remains, will be exhibited at Field Projects in New York in 2023. She’s been awarded residencies at the Jentel Foundation, Lighthouse Works, Willapa Bay, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, La Napoule Art Foundation, and PADA Studios. Currently, she’s an Assistant Professor of Textile Design at the Fashion Institute of Technology. For more info on the artist: http://www.ruthjeyaveeran.com
ELISA H. HAMILTON is a socially engaged multimedia artist who creates artworks and community-centered programs that emphasize shared spaces and the hopeful examination of our everyday places, objects, and experiences. Her work has been shown locally and nationally in solo and group exhibitions, and she has been the recipient of numerous commissions and grants to create artworks, community projects, and participatory programs. Collaborations include projects with the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, MA including Sound Lab, a community-centered participatory art project that was commissioned for inclusion in the exhibition “Listen Hear: The Art of Sound,” Creative Union, a community-centered participatory art project commissioned by the Currier Museum of Art, NH, Jukebox, permanent public art piece commissioned by the City of Cambridge, MA. Hamilton’s project Dance Spot has had many iterations and commissions including at Tyler School of Art. Hamilton earned a BFA in Painting from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design, and an MA in Civic Media Art and Practice from Emerson College.
During her Artist House residency, Hamilton will highlight two projects: Can you see me? and Jukebox. Both projects focus on issues of identity and belonging, and hone in on the individual and collective aspects of being a part of a community. In addition to art, these projects connect to many subjects including oral history, archives, social justice, Black stories, multimedia storytelling, community activism, intergenerational learning, public discourse, and civic engagement. Can you see me? is a participatory art project that uses photography and image transfer as a vehicle for self-exploration. Participants are invited to reflect on visible and invisible aspects of their identity through the process of making and sharing their creations. Can you see me? invokes questions about how we are seen by others, who we really are, what we choose to share about ourselves. This project is installed in the Art Lab at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston from October 2022 to June 2023. Jukebox, a participatory public art project, transforms an original 1960 Seeburg jukebox from a machine that plays music to a machine that plays community stories. A number of the 100 Jukebox audio stories were recorded in partnership with the Cambridge Black History Project, an all-volunteer organization committed to researching, accurately documenting, preserving, and illuminating the journeys, accomplishments, and challenges of Black Cantabrigians. In addition, the recorded stories of Jukebox are part of the Archives and Special Collections in the Cambridge Room at the Cambridge Public Library. Hamilton was commissioned by the Cambridge Arts Council, City of Cambridge, as part of the Percent-for-Art Ordinance, to create a public art project responsive to the new Cambridge Foundry where Jukebox is permanently installed. Visit the Jukebox website to learn more.