Join us on Tuesday, June 29 at 7PM for an Artist Panel with the artists featured in (un)seen. Read more about each artist below.
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Featured Artists:
LYSSA PALU-AY
Palu-ay’s work explores nature, memory, ritual, and sacred space. Whether it be in the ancient Tibetan landscape or a remote corner of Maine, Palu-ay becomes a teller of stories about a lost place and time. Her work begins intuitively with the photograph but she also uses drawing and video to expand her dialogue with nature. Palu-ay received a BA in Political Science from Boston College with additional coursework in the Faith, Peace and Justice Program. She then earned an MFA in photography from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. Palu-ay is the Dean of justice, equity and transformation (JET) at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston, MA.
The Shape of Grief is a site-specific installation that navigates the experience of identity from the perspective of an Asian American Filipina. This exploration contends with the storms of a societal anti-Asian climate and the subsequent aftermaths. The field of this environmental condition becomes a site of reflection in the work.
STEPHEN TOURLENTES
Stephen Tourlentes was born in Galesburg, Illinois and currently resides in Somerville, MA. He received his BFA from Knox College and an MFA from the Massachusetts College of Art in Boston, where he is currently a visiting professor of photography. His work is included in many collections including the Princeton University Art Museum, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Art Institute of Chicago and has been exhibited at the Revolution Gallery, Michigan; Cranbook Art Museum, Michigan; and S.F. Camerawork, among others.
From his project statement: “We are living in the era of mass incarceration in the U.S. I discovered this by chance when a new prison was built in the town I grew up in in Illinois. On the outskirts of town the night sky was punctuated with a brilliant glow that changed my perception of the horizon. This transformation of the landscape revealed an unseen human cargo held in time and place.”
RASHIN FAHANDEJ
Rashin Fahandej is an Iranian-American multimedia artist and filmmaker. Her projects center on marginalized voices and the role of media, technology, and public collaboration in generating social change. A proponent of “Art as Ecosystem,” she defines her projects as “Poetic Cyber Movement for Social Justice,” where art mobilizes a plethora of voices by creating connections between public places and virtual spaces. She is the founder of “A Father’s Lullaby, “ a multi-platform, co-creative project that highlights the role of men in raising children and their absence due to racial disparities in the criminal justice system. Marginalia, a series of poetic documentaries about Baha’i immigrants of Iranian descent, narrates a historical persecution in their homeland.
In A Father’s Lullaby, Fahandej critically examines the structural racism of the US prison system and the impact of mass incarceration on lower-income communities, as well as arguing the case for its transformation through care and love and a shift in the nation’s philosophy. As an assistant professor at Emerson College, she runs courses in cooperation with the Nurturing Fatherhood Program at the Federal Probation Office in Boston, where students, formerly incarcerated fathers, and parole officers co-create personal documentary films using VR and 360° technology.
KEITH MORRIS WASHINGTON
The art of Keith Morris Washington investigates meaning and metaphor through landscape and portraiture. These landscapes and full-body portraits explore memory, identity and social themes, that are latent and often obscured by visible features, cultural (mis)understanding and time.