February 8, 2019
By Shanai Matteson What does it meant to really, truly know water? Not to know about it—but know it, learn with it, teach in it? These are some of the questions guiding the Ways of Knowing Water research collaborative, which began convening in December to explore new models for knowing and teaching water at the University of Minnesota and beyond. Our collaborative—which is…
January 18, 2019
ACT×4 When artist Marina Abramović famously declared The Artist Is Present, the immediate follow-up question that could be asked is: “present to what end?” Can we think of a physical presence of an artist in a gallery as having a goal? Presence is an action: performance is the most affordable form of making, the most…
January 16, 2019
“… When cells don’t receive signals from one another they can die. The lack of communication can cause cells to simply shut down.” -Rebecca Hortensius (Brenda Ogle’s System Regeneration Lab Team) Even the basic building blocks of living organisms can die from loneliness. The…
December 29, 2018
So, here is a very low-pressure experiment. An exploration in the use of dance as a means of enhancing the culture of empathy and sustainability in senior assisted living communities. Close your eyes. Imagine you are reaching both arms out in front of your body, bent at the elbows, aligned with the horizon. Loose fists…
October 1, 2018
Image: by Larry Bell. One interesting thing about being an artist now is that everything is a possibility. Which means you start out of the state of total chaos, and you have to assume the responsibility for every single thing you do or do not do. – Robert Irwin, from the film Drugs and Beyond, Extension…
September 28, 2018
The Sensory Loss and Art Symposium at the Weisman Art Museum (WAM) was the end result of my summer-long residency with the Center for Applied Translational Sensory Science (CATSS) at the University of Minnesota. All summer I met with scientists studying all facets of vision and hearing loss, and learned about their individual research interests….
August 1, 2018
Introduction BodyCartography Project (BCP), a Minneapolis-based dance collective of Olive Bieringa and Otto Ramstad, celebrate their twentieth anniversary with a tour that concludes at the Weisman Art Museum (WAM) in Minneapolis in the summer of 2018. It began in the Performance Arcade festival in Wellington (New Zealand), and continued in SFMOMA (San Francisco). During…
July 17, 2018
Reflections on the performance felt room by BodyCartography Project The performance space is a stage-less, featureless, roomy white cube with only the functional elements in it: white dance floor, lights, speakers, no chairs. Five dancers share floor with the audience. A pile of white cloth in the corner: dancers will use that. Most of the…
February 6, 2018
Scientists, architects, educators, psychologists, artists—seemingly disparate, these people gathered in May 1970 in the studio of the artist Robert Irwin to learn together: what does it take to build habitable environments in space. This was the First National Symposium on Habitability of Environments, designed by artist Robert Irwin and the space program psychologist Ed…
January 9, 2018
WAM’s curator for creative collaboration, Boris Oicherman, is relocating his office hours to the the Water Bar, a space that is nurturing creative collaborations in the Twin Cities. As the curator of WAM’s Target Studio for Creative Collaboration, Boris is dedicated to cultivating collaboration opportunities at WAM. During his office hours he will be available…