Rokeby Museum2019 Art Meets History Symposium
June 8, 2019, 11AM to 5PM
at Rokeby Museum
What happens when artists mingle with history? What roles can museums play in an artist’s practice? How can engagement with history help an artist speak to the present? How can an artist’s practice be developed by engaging place with research and exploration? These are the questions we will explore at the Art Meets History Symposium, a day long meeting of artists and art professionals at Rokeby Museum. The symposium is open to all artists regardless of levels and styles, from en plein air painters and photographers to those engaged in a social or conceptual practice. We also welcome art professionals and members of the public to join the discussion. The Symposium will introduce the Rokeby Artist Lab and other programs taking place this year.
Program
Artwork by Nancy Winship Milliken, Erika Senft Miller, Wylie Garcia, and Ric Kasini Kadour
11AM PANEL PRESENTATION
Land, Heart, Soul, and History:
Four Contemporary Artists
Four working artists will briefly present their practice and raise questions for discussion about the role of artists in society. Defining her art as “contemporary pastoralism,” Nancy Winship Milliken is inspired by our age-old relationship to nature as a way to consider ecological questions in the present. The Program Director at Shelburne Craft School, as an artist Wylie Garcia investigates themes of identity and place through process and material-oriented projects. Using cross disciplinary mediums such as textiles, painting, drawing, sound, and performance, Garcia explores issues related to gender, devotion, and emotional spaces. Erika Senft Miller is a multimedia artist with a doctorate study in creative process and concept of play. Senft Miller serves as faculty in graduate and undergraduate programs in dance, performance art, kinesthetic learning. Ric Kasini Kadour‘s practice as an artist, writer, and culture worker is concerned with the relationship between art and society. He is the Curator of Contemporary Art at Rokeby Museum.
12:30PM NETWORKING
Picnic Under the Locust Trees
Meet other artists and art professionals at a networking lunch under the locust trees (weather permitting). Bring your own lunch or pre-order a box lunch when you register.
1:30PM INTERVIEW & DISCUSSION
How to Use a Museum in One’s Art Practice?
Ric Kasini Kadour, Curator of Contemporary Art at Rokeby Museum, will interview Andrea Rosen, Curator at the University of Vermont’s Fleming Museum of Art about the role museums can play in an artist’s practice and pose questions about the relationship between museums, collections, historic sites, and working artists. Prior to her role at the Fleming Museum of Art, Rosen worked at the Bowdoin College Museum of Art in Brunswick, Maine and interned at institutions including the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Toledo Museum of Art and Smith College Museum of Art.
3PM WALKING TOUR
Art Rokeby Tour
After a brief presentation from Rokeby Director Catherine Brooks about the various resources available to artists that they can use to learn about Rokeby and make art, participants will enjoy a tour of Rokeby site with a focus on its potential for art making. This tour will end with an opportunity for a house tour, a self-guided tour of the award-winning Free & Safe exhibition, and a tour of Rokeby Through the Lens exhibit.
4PM DISCUSSION
Q&A
For those interested in getting more involved with Contemporary Art at Rokeby, Ric Kasini Kadour will speak briefly about Rokeby Artist Membership, Rokeby Artist Lab, Art Rokeby Festival, and upcoming exhibition plans.
Details
Pre-registration is required. Tickets: $25 each, free for Artist Members and Rokeby Members. There is an additional cost of $15 if you wish to order a boxed lunch.
BOX LUNCH
A box lunch from 3 Squares Catering in Vergennes is available by pre-purchase for $15. Lunches include a sandwich (choice of roast turkey, tuna salad, or herb-marinated tofu), a dill pickle spear, dressed greens, and a bag of Deep River potato chips. A selection of beverages will be available at the symposium or bring your own.
ACCOMMODATIONS
There are inns, B&Bs and AirBnBs that are convenient to Rokeby. Be sure to book early. Here is a sample: Mt. Philo Inn, 27 Inn Road, Charlotte 05445 (www.mtphiloinn.com) | Whitford House, 912 Grandey Road, Addison 05491 (www.whitfordhousevt.com) | Strong House Inn, 94 West Main Street, Vergennes 05491 (www.stronghouseinn.com ) | Emerson Guest House, 82 Main Street, Vergennes 05491 (www.emersonhouse.com) | Inn at Charlotte B&B, 32 State Park Road, Charlotte 05445 (www.innatcharlotte.com). There is no public transportation to Rokeby, but taxis and ridesharing are available. Ask your hosts about the options.
Questions? Call 802.877.3406 or send an email to director@rokeby.org
Presenters
Andrea Rosen
Andrea Rosen specializes in curating for academic art museums, involving students and faculty in the curatorial process at all stages of exhibition planning. She has curated and co-curated exhibitions on a wide range of subjects, including recent shows on historical and contemporary miniatures, Victorian fashion, the cartoonist Alison Bechdel, Afro-Atlantic sacred art, and Surrealist photography. Rosen, the curator of the Fleming Museum of Art at the University of Vermont, holds a Masters in Art History and Museum Studies from Tufts University, with a focus on art since 1960, and Bachelors in Studio Art from Smith College. She is the founder and organizer of the Vermont Curators Group, a venue for collaboration among curators from diverse institutions across the state. www.uvm.edu/fleming
Nancy Winship Milliken
Defining her art as “contemporary pastoralism”, Nancy Winship Milliken is inspired by our age-old relationship to nature as a way to consider ecological questions in the present. She creates environmental and site-specific sculptures in both urban and rural settings using natural materials like sheep’s wool or mud from pasture fields. Originally from Hartford, Connecticut, Winship Milliken holds an MFA from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. She has installed work in New England and New Zealand farmlands, and shown in solo and select group shows, including at deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Lincoln, Massachusetts; Boston Sculptors Gallery; The Brattleboro Museum & Art Center; Burlington City Arts; the Christian Science Plaza in Boston; Provincetown Art Association & Museum, Massachusetts; Qorikancha Museum, Cusco, Peru; and the University Museum of Contemporary Art at UMass Amherst. She lives and works in Charlotte. www.nancymilliken.com
Wylie Garcia
Wylie Garcia investigates themes of identity and place through process and material-oriented projects. Using cross disciplinary mediums such as textiles, painting, drawing, sound, and performance, Garcia explores issues related to gender, devotion, and emotional spaces. Garcia has a BA from the University of Chicago and an MFA from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. She was the winner of the 2016 Barbara Smail Fellowship and Award from Burlington City Arts and the winner of a 2016 Creation Grant from the Vermont Arts Council. Her work has been shown in solo and group shows across the U.S. and she has held residencies at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts and the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, among others. Garcia’s studio is in Burlington and she is represented by the Schoolhouse Gallery in Provincetown. www.wyliegarcia.com
Erika Senft Miller
Erika Senft Miller is an interdisciplinary performance artist and collaborative creator of multi-sensory experiences. Her work examines and contextualizes unique physical sites by employing numerous art forms that collectively establish human exploration, and invite empathy and connection within large-scale performances. Senft Miller speaks five languages and has relocated seventeen times, factors that inform her process as she interacts with both people and sites. She has performed in the United States and Europe, and has spent over twenty years teaching in universities, theaters, businesses, and community centers. She trained in dance theater with Fe Reichelt, holds a doctorate in Dance Education, a masters in Physical Therapy and is a certified teacher of The Alexander Technique. www.erikasenftmiller.com
Catherine Brooks
Catherine Brooks is the Director of Rokeby Museum. Having held positions as a teacher, librarian, museum educator, adjunct college faculty, and cultural heritage tourism administrator, Catherine describes her career as being focused on providing meaningful – if not transformative – cultural experiences for people of all ages. From 2008 to 2017, as Cultural Heritage Tourism Coordinator for the Vermont Department of Tourism & Marketing, Catherine was project lead for Vermont’s African American Heritage Trail, and as Shelburne Museum’s Director of Education from 1998 to 200? she initiated a variety of art-based adult, student and family programs; organized annual symposia; and curated exhibits featuring the work of children’s book illustrators Barbara Cooney and Tasha Tudor. www.rokeby.org
Ric Kasini Kadour
Ric Kasini Kadour is a writer, artist, publisher, and cultural worker. He works across projects to address what he sees as a broken relationship between art and society. Kadour is the Curator of Contemporary Art at the Rokeby Museum. He has curated exhibitions at galleries in Louisiana, Ontario, Quebec, and Vermont, including at two galleries he co-owned in Burlington and Montreal. He is the editor and publisher of Vermont Art Guide, Kolaj Magazine and Art Map Burlington. His photography, collage, and sculpture have been exhibited across North America and is in private collections in Canada, France, the United States, and the United Kingdom. Kadour holds a BA in Comparative Religious Studies from the University of Vermont. www.rickasinikadour.com
Contemporary Art at Rokeby Museum is an ambitious two-year project designed to engage artists and the public with Rokeby Museum archives, objects, buildings, and land. Project activities will demonstrate how contemporary art can pick up the unfinished work of history and foster civic engagement in social, economic, and environmental justice issues. In 2019, Contemporary Art at Rokeby Museum will present two exhibitions, introduce an artist membership program, conduct a symposium about the relationship between art and history, and host an artist lab designed to support the development of an artist’s practice. Artists will be invited to make art at or about Rokeby Museum and their work will be shared online and at a festival in August. Contemporary Art at Rokeby Museum is a collaboration with Kasini House. rokeby.org/contemporary
