Online Launch May 8, 2021. Inspired by botanical history, land use, and plant ecologies as they relate to us as citizens and noncitizens, this exhibition builds connections between Obeng’s experiences as a surveilled non-citizen and plant specimens in the UW–Madison Herbarium through hundreds of cyanotype images presented on handmade paper made from recycled Badger T-shirts.
Gallery Exhibition
Nora Renick Rinehart: “Flannel Futures”
Online Launch: May 8, 2021. “Flannel Futures” inquires into the making of memory, questions the perseverance of tradition versus the conjuring of new normals, and wonders how we will commemorate that which we have used to commemorate our own past from the vantage point of the future.
2021 Design Studies Master in Fine Arts Exhibition
Online Launch: April 16, 2021. In the culmination of three years of intensive work, Design Studies MFA candidates Amanda Thatch and Han-ah Yoo present their thesis work in two digital exhibitions representing recent installations in the Ruth Davis Design Gallery.
Han-ah Yoo: “Relationships: Invisible, but Extant”
Online Launch: April 16, 2021. This exhibition of creative works is designed to provoke awareness of the adverse ecological impacts of the fashion industry. During washing and manufacturing synthetic textile products, thousands of different chemicals and tons of microfibers are emitted, and the emission causes risks to aquatic organisms…
Amanda Thatch: “Tromp as Writ”
Online Launch: April 16, 2021. To weavers, the phrase “tromp as writ” means that the sequence of threading is repeated in the foot-operated treadling; a single set of instructions can function for both setting up the loom and for the movement of the weaver’s feet while working. The pieces in this exhibition explore the interaction of text and pattern through hand-woven images.
Harmony and Evolution: An Exhibition of the Chinese-American Art Faculty Association
Installed in Gallery: February 26, 2020–April 5, 2020. Online Launch: Summer 2020. This exhibition showcases the work of art and design faculty from across the U.S. to address how art and design express cultural integration and creativity. The CAAFA represents the U.S. & China.
What Would a Microbe Say?
Was to be installed in Gallery: April 29-June 7, 2020. Online Launch: Summer 2020. Artist Sonja Bäumel, collaborating with Helen Blackwell of the UW-Madison Department of Chemistry, explores the perception of what bodies are made of through microbes and the body’s surface. Bäumel reimagines skin as a fictional layer of communication, and as a multi-being landscape linked to the discovery of the human microbiome.
UNPACKED: Refugee Baggage
Installed in Gallery: February 5 – April 3, 2020. Online Launch: Summer 2020. “UNPACKED: Refugee Baggage” seeks to humanize the word “refugee.” This multimedia exhibit features the sculptures of Mohamad Hafez, a Syrian-born, Connecticut-based artist and architect who re-creates war-torn domestic interiors within suitcases. HLATC pieces were placed in dialogue with UNPACKED.
Intersections: Indigenous Textiles of the Americas
Installed in Gallery: September 5 – December 6, 2019. Online Launch: Summer 2020. From the Andes to the Great Lakes, textiles reflect cultural narratives of community and tradition. This exhibit analyzes select textiles from HLATC and the Little Eagle Arts Foundation to provide a deeper understanding of the lifeways, movement, and stories of these objects.