June 13, 2019
I have personally always been interested in sex work. It is and has always been work. I think sex workers and erotic dancers specifically are very underappreciated. There are a lot of misconceptions about dancing that I would love to clarify for the public. One is the stereotypes about the kind of women who…
May 29, 2019
WAM’s Cindy and Jay Ihlenfeld Curator for Creative Collaboration, Boris Oicherman, reflects on the past year’s progression in working towards fulfilling the Target Studio for Creative Collaboration’s mission, as well as what the future of the studio has in store. Kate Drakulic: You began planning for this year’s studio cohort in the summer of 2017….
May 28, 2019
When I am initiating participatory projects, I am engaged, of course, with the questions and issues specific to the context—in this case, the labor issues within and feminist potential of erotic dancing. But I am also thinking about overarching issues of participation and organizing. In my artist statement, I say that I am interested…
May 28, 2019
Over the last few years I have produced a body of work that focuses on social control. These conceptual art projects have been effective in teasing out and putting on display some of the unseen ways institutions exercise control. The zine project Inmate Activity Book is a perfect example: produced in collaboration with a…
May 22, 2019
The Section of Disapproved Books is an art project and data compilation by the artist Daniel McCarthy Clifford in collaboration with the Director of Data Management & Access at the University of Minnesota Libraries Besty Friesen, and multiple other actors. The installation consisted of over 600 publications banned in Department of Correction (DOC) facilities…
May 15, 2019
I’ve just spent a year sitting on the couch, in a deflated C shape, terribly still, feeding my mammal child. This is a posture I will very likely fill again at an older age, as so many older adults do. I had gotten comfortable, as a body-based artist, being a person who is looked…
March 12, 2019
At 7 p.m. on Wednesday night, the Target Studio for Creative Collaboration bustled with students, faculty, and community members. People chatted and greeted each other upon entrance to the gallery space, careful not to step on one of the many hand-held radios scattered across the floor. Other visitors scanned the room in anticipation of the…
February 28, 2019
Can Skates Pants from Terry Hempfling on Vimeo. TERRY SPEAKING RACHEL TYPING [But here’s the real conversation.] I was a dishwasher in a cafeteria. [What was your first job growing up? Where?] [What do you do…] At Antioch College….
February 14, 2019
In 1991, I didn’t anticipate the reactions of my art school peers when I told them I had been working as an “exotic dancer” for the past year and a half. Of course I knew that it was a somewhat transgressive job and might bring me some notoriety, but I hadn’t expected to be pitied,…
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…