AHLSS Visiting Artists Series 2014-15 Award Recipients
1) Emerging Artist Grant: The Izumi Ashizawa Performance Company, presenting "Mysterious Lake"
Principal Investigator: Izumi Ashizawa, Theatre Arts
Collaborating Faculty: Heidi Hutner, Interim Director of Sustainability Studies; Eva Nagase, Lecturer, Asian and Asian American Studies; Jin Young Jin, Associate Director of Cultural Programs, The Wang Center
Alan Inkles, Chair of the Guest Artist Residency Selection committee writes the following about "Mysterious Lake":
The project, "Mysterious Lake," is a production designed for audiences of all ages, and explores issues of climate change and economic justice, the latter referring to the tendency to target poorer communities by locating factories that have the greatest potential polluting the soil, air and water in their midst. It is a timely topic and one, given the subject matter, of great interest to the partners as well as the university at large. This is especially true because of the Humanities for the Environment initiative of the Humanities Institute. The potential for creating a conversation across disciplines is extremely high, and the Theatre Arts Department is dedicated to supporting this project.
The outcome of the performance will be a production in Theatre I of the Department of Theatre Arts in the Staller Center in the Spring of 2015. The production will be open to the general public, as well as the SBU community. In addition the department will promote the production to local school districts and encourage special performances for age appropriate classes. The department pledges its fiscal and physical resources to the realization of the performance of "Mysterious Lake."
The Selection Committee, representing Theatre Arts, Music, Art, Dance, Creative Writing, and English, voted to award the $20,000 Emerging Artist Grant for the spring of 2015 for this Theatre Arts project.
2) Established Artist Residency: Lorraine Walsh for the 2014-15 Academic year
The Department of Art welcomes Lorrain Walsh as Visiting Assistant Professor in the Studio program. In addition to her responsibilities as Art Director of the Simons Center for Geometry and Physics, she will teach courses in digital animation, participate in studio critiques of student work, and participate in teaching Curatorial and Museum Studies. She was selected after a national search for artists and curators who have a committed interest in the intersection of art and science. She comes to us from the University of North Carolina at Asheville, where she was central in developing a program in New Media.
Professor Walsh serves as the Art Director and Curator of the Simons Center for Geometry and Physics, and is a Visiting Associate Professor of Art at Stony Brook University. She teaches new media art and curatorial studies, and she works with fine art animation, interactive art, installation, sound, video, print, and all aspects of drawing.
Walsh's art is inspired by the sciences, nature, and the environment. Her research in "sci-art" is located in the rich possibilities of the interplay, shared structure, and aesthetic expression intrinsic in natural and creative processes. Professor Walsh's work is exhibited internationally in venues that include the State Museum of Contemporary Art, Thessaloniki, Greece Biennale; The Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany; and the José Marti National Library, Havana, Cuba. She also lectures internationally and is the recipient of numerous awards and grants. Grants include the e-MobiLArt (European Mobile Lab for Interactive Media Artists Collaborative Project), a Euro initiative tailored around the process for collaboratively creating new media interactive installation artworks. This grant was in association with the University of Athens, University of Lapland, and the University of Applied Arts Vienna. Other grants include working with new media and physics students on a collaborative astronomy grant from the National Science Foundation for the visualization of the radio sky. As an artist and teacher, Walsh believes in combining digital technologies with traditional practice. Her interdisciplinary and hybrid media art merges time-honored practices in fine art alongside digital methodologies.