UM’s campus is hardly lacking for artistic talent. In its varying forms, students are quick to represent their abilities. Helicon, the History of Art Undergraduate Society, will be giving a space to such talent and displaying student curated and student made art in a one night only pop-up exhibition titled: Synesthesia. The event is open to any and all looking to check out some art in a cool and casual setting.
Synesthesia will be taking place on November 18, 8-11 p.m. at 504 Catherine St.
In case you somehow missed the hype, here is the trailer for the upcoming film.
Here are two of the many reasons why you should be excited:
Also why wouldn’t you want to see this gorgeous man on the big screen?
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them comes out November 18.
You can find times for Goodrich Quality 16 and Rave Cinemas (Ann Arbor 20) here.
Tickets run about $9.75 for standard adult 2-D
If you’re an indecisive appreciator of art, or an enthusiast of all forms, the upcoming SMTD@UMMA performance, Image in Motion, is for you. In this collaboration between the Department of Dance and the University of Michigan Museum of Art, U-M Dance students will use UMMA’s new exhibit Europe on Paper as inspiration for the performance. The Europe on Paper collection features the work of German and Austrian Expressionist painters; dancers will interpret the works’ emotion and color through movement.
These two artistic modes lie close to my heart, and based on past STMD@UMMA performances, the beauty of UMMA’s gallery space only further brings SMTD work to life. This marriage of artistic forms is happening Thursday, November 17 at 7:30 in UMMA, and is free and open to the public.
Tonight’s choice of organ music was none other than “Over the Rainbow,” from the Wizard of Oz, a fitting tune considering featured guest Athi-Patra Ruga recently put on a show of the same name. Ruga framed his lecture by talking about self-made superheroes, these characters or rather, avatars, that he has both created and embodied to deal with past traumas. These figures have become the central focus of all his varied artistic ventures throughout the years.
One of the very first avatars he created was “Miss Congo,” who he describes as a “club kid.” At this time he took up tapestry work, saying that he would prefer to define his own fate, and his own story, rather than let others do so for him. In particular he wanted to explore the way that black women have been portrayed at art.
The next character he explored was “Injibhabha,” which translates from his native language of Xhosa into alopecia, or hair-loss, in English. This character was created directly in response to a specific incident that occurred in his life. Ruga had been in Switzerland when he saw a poster featuring cartoon white sheep kicking a cartoon black sheep out of the country, with the message promoting “cleaning up” the country by forcing immigrants out of the country. He had built up in his mind Switzerland as a kind of utopian space, but in this moment it all came crashing down. He did a piece of performance art in which he dressed up as this avatar by sewing together an outfit of “costume afros,” and entering a pen of white sheep. He continued to experiment with this avatar for a while, and some of the photos he took at this time of Injibhabha are placed below.
The next character he began exploring was “Beiruth,” which was made in response to a news story covering a South African woman that had been attacked by a man in a taxi for simply wearing a miniskirt. Beiruth was meant to be hyper sexualized, and create an immediate reaction in those that come across her. However, eventually the weight of these issues began to wear on him, and so he “killed off” both of these characters with a dramatic photo of Beiruth standing in front of the crashing waves.
His next major avatar was “Ilullwane,” which refers to a bat, or in the context of his culture, a boy who goes to circumcision school as a rite of passage. Many young boys would die because of infection and ill treatment during this process, and those who leave the program would have to face heavy social stigma. He wanted to create a “superhero” that would provide inspiration for these young boys. This idea led to several other interesting works. One of which being, “The Body in Question.” He showed the video below during the presentation.
With this series he hoped to raise awareness about transgender rights. One of his more elaborate works with the avatar of Ilullwane involved a performance act in an Olympic-sized swimming pool and 12 synchronized swimmers. The photo gallery below shows just some of the images from that performance.
The most recent of his series is “The Future White Women of Azania.” Azania is a word used to reference the East African coast line since at least 14 AD among the Greeks. The major motif of this series is Ruga’s body entirely covered in balloons, and by popping these balloons he is “shedding his identity.” This project is ongoing, and he continues to find new ways to explore this series, already producing everything from sculpture to photography to textiles.
The presentation ended with the premier of Ruga’s new video, “Queens In Exile,” which marks the start of yet another character. The video started out with Ruga dressed as a queen, with extravagant jewels and costuming. The video took us through several distinctive sections before ending with the shot you see below. You can see a clip of the video, and hopefully eventually the full video on Ruga’s Facebook page. https://www.facebook.com/AthiPatraRuga/
I also got a chance to attend the Q&A session immediately following the presentation. Nearly every lecture has a Q&A session, and I’ve always found them to be tremendously enriching. This time Ruga discussed in further depth his thoughts on the recent US election, the current trend towards conservatism globally, his process for getting into character, and the influence the internet has had on his life and work.
The Stamps Speaker Series is held every Thursday at 5:10 PM at the Michigan Theater. There are only two more presentations this semester, but the series will pick right back up next semester.
The room was solemn when I first walked in, the lights turned low and the entire auditorium awash in a deep green glow. After a brief introduction, Mary Mattingly took to the podium. With a silent video of a burning boat playing on the screen behind her, Mattingly opened the night’s lecture with reflections on 
the election, which had only been decided in the wee hours of that very morning. Instead of directly addressing the results, she chose to highlight the slew of emotions many were feeling that night by delivering a poem, an amalgamation of the various responses she had seen across social media, interspersed with her own reflections.
Mary Mattingly started out her presentation by giving a brief overview of her artistic journey. With a formal training in photography, she now uses it in three different ways to interact with her work;
as a proposal and reimagining of existing locations, as a documentation of the sculptural work that she does, and as an element within the sculptures themselves. Her current work is focused on several ideas, such as reimagining and making a statement on public food, transforming industrial equipment into sculptural ecosystems and exploring our relationships with objects.
She then began to take us through some of her more recent projects. “Wading Bridge,” in Des Moines, IA is an invitation for locals to directly interact with the Raccoon River, which is considered both polluted and dangerously swift. The piece was commissioned to inspire thoughts and discussion about water quality in the area.
Another one of her current projects involved the construction of a park in New York City. The following clip shows some of the process, as well as the final product of this project.
One of her current projects in New York City is a “floating food forest” called Swale, located on a large floating platform. She says the work was created in part because it is illegal to pick food from public land, whereas there are no such rules about picking food on water. The food grown on Swale is made of mostly perennial plants that were donated by the park service. If you are interested in learning more about the project, please check out the official website, http://www.swaleny.org/ .
She then dove into discussing her influences as an artist. She says she has always been attracted to dealing with basic necessities such as food, water, and shelter. The area in which she grew up did not have potable ground water, which lead to her “obsession” with water. She then began to think about the way that humans will have to survive the aftermath of climate change, particularly in terms of human migration. This eventually led to her work on the Waterpod Project, as shown in the video below.
The original idea for the Waterpod Project had been to create a space that supports growing food and would also be a sustainable living environment. One of the most difficult parts of the project was simply obtaining the permits necessary to legally begin work. Over the course of a year and a half she and her team had to collect 18 different permits, one of them being an approval to photograph chickens by the actors guild. The project was launched in 2009, and visited a grand total of 5 piers. She and several of her friends lived on it for 5 months, after which she claims to have realized why most artists stick to working on land.
One of the more interesting projects she worked on was a documentation of every object she owned at the time at own-it.us . It was an intentionally absurd project to document her shame at her own consumption. To further drive the message home, she bundled up all of her belongings and dragged them across New York, purposefully making useful objects nothing more than a useless burden. In turn, this project has given her a substantial amount of respect for the true value of each object.
This lead directly into her work at the University of Michigan and her newly opened exhibit, Object’s Unveiled: Boxing, Rolling, Stretching and Cutting. For this exhibit she wanted to learn more
about the background behind these objects that we study. In particular, she became drawn to cobalt, which is not only use to produce beautiful blue pigments, but is also used in defense technology and green energy. The state of Michigan has ties to cobalt as we house one of the country’s few cobalt mines. She ended the lecture on this note, ending a few minutes early due to the events of the prior day.
After the lecture was over I made the quick walk over to the Institute for the Humanities with many of the other audience members to enjoy a reception for Mattingly’s exhibit opening there that night. While a somber air still permeated the room, it was clear everyone was impressed by the exhibition. I had a chance to chat with Mattingly briefly, and got her permission to take photos of the exhibit to display on this blog. The following were some of my favorite pieces.
If you missed the talk, but are still intrigued by Mattingly’s work, I encourage you to check out her exhibit at the Institute of Humanities Gallery, located in the South Thayer Building. The exhibit will be up until December 15th, so head on over and experience Objects Unveiled yourself.
As a special treat, the Stamps Lecture Series will be offering not one, but two lectures this week. Today, November 9th at 5:10 pm at the Rackham Amphitheater, the esteemed artist, Mary Mattingly will give us a personal glimpse into her creative process. You will soon be able to see her installation work either on the diag as a part of your daily walk to class, or at the Institute for Humanities. Tomorrow, November 10th, join us in the Michigan Theater at the same time to see a speech by the inventive and inspiring Athi-Patra Ruga.
Mattingly’s installation at the Institute for Humanities is entitled, “Objects Unveiled: Boxing, Rolling, Stretching and Cutting,” and it explores the use of cobalt as a pigment throughout the ages, and the social issues surrounding it. There will be an opening reception for this exhibit immediately following her lecture today. You can find more information about the event here.
https://events.umich.edu/event/33059
Mattingly uses her work to explore ideas such as nomadic lifestyles and travel, connections and human relations, and exactly what it is that defines our home. Her work merges performance art, architecture, sculpture and more in harmony to make a bold statement.
Her project to design “wearable portable architecture,” and to create a “wearable home,” embody this melding of ideas perfectly. The contrast between fashion, and the most extreme form of function, is strikingly obvious in the following pictures.
One of her most exciting projects is the Waterpod Project, a livable floating platform that was docked outside New York and has housed many artists. You can watch a video highlighting some of what made this project so special below.
Her “House and Universe” photo series is also strikingly resonant, and the photos featured here are just a small sample of those in the series.
Lastly, she returned to many of the ideas she has worked with on the Waterpod Project, in her 2014 project WetLand. This work explored the responses to the changing environment and the future of the human race because of this changing environment. Mary and several other artists created and lived in this work as it floated along the Philadelphia river, making a statement about sustainable living. I have included another video about the project below.
All images and videos are from www.marymattingly.com
