CHICAGO, IL – The relationship between humans and nature, as well as the nature of human nature is the theme of Columbia College Chicago’s third year of Critical Encounters, a campus-wide learning initiative that examines topics of serious social and cultural importance. Through both classroom experiences and public programming the community and the school engage with each other to explore the many questions surrounding Human|Nature. Columbia begins the 2008-9 year with a variety of free public programs:
Thursday, September 4
Art Exhibition/Opening Reception: 5 – 7 p.m.
Scavenger Constructs: Site Specific Sculptures
Glass Curtain Gallery, 1104 S. Wabash, 1st floor
This exhibition features five visual artists who re-contextualize everyday objects to create sculptures and installations that reveal the delicate and transient balance between humans and nature, order and chaos. Gathering and scavenging objects intended for the landfill, artists Sally Heller, Mara Baker, Soyeon Cho, Karen Rifas and Melissa Pokorny create new forms that pay homage to nature as a mystical and ever evolving force. They playfully ask viewers to contemplate the surroundings of their everyday lives and find potential in common mass-produced objects. Curated by Mark Porter. Scavenger Constructs runs through October 18. More information at 312.369.6643 or www.colum.edu/glasscurtaingallery
Art Exhibition/Closing Reception: 5 – 8 p.m.
Human|Nature Faculty Exhibition
The Averill and Bernard Leviton A + D Gallery, 619 S. Wabash, 1st floor
Eleven faculty members from Columbia’s department of art and design examine the tensions between humankind and the natural world. Using a variety of media, Carol Haliday McQueen, Kay Hartmann, Kevin Henry, Friedhard Kiekeben, Marlene Lipinski, Sabina Ott, Corey Postiglione, Arti Sandhu, Tom Taylor and Jay Wolke consider how factors such as the culture, wealth, geography and history of societies have influenced humanity’s stewardship, exploitation, understanding and artistic representations of the natural environment. Organized by Jennifer Murray. The closing reception features a reading by fiction writing faculty member Lisa Schlesinger from her work Predator/Prey and other Thoughts on Love. Reading begins at 6:30 p.m. More information at 312.369.8687 or www.colum.edu/adgallery
Monday, September 8
Faculty Readings: 6 – 8 p.m.
In Relationship with Nature - through the lenses of poetry, critical studies and journalism
Hokin Gallery, 623 S. Wabash, 1st floor
Journalist and travel writer Sharon Bloyd-Peshkin, poet Lisa Fishman and cultural critic Douglas Reichert Powell share long-format readings that examine their respective work through the lens of Human|Nature. Bloyd-Peshkin is the winner of the 2000 Lisagor Award for magazine reporting; her work has been published in Chicago Magazine the Chicago Tribune Magazine, Chicago Sun-Times and the Chicago Journal. Fishman is the author of The Happiness Experiment (Ahsahta Press, 2007), Dear, Read (Ahsahta, 2002) and The Deep Heart’s Core Is a Suitcase (New Issues Press, 1998). Powell is the author of Critical Regionalism: Connecting Politics and Culture in the American Landscape (University of North Carolina Press, 2007)
Tuesday, September 9
Curator’s Lecture: 5 p.m.
Stephen F. Eisenman on “Charles Darwin, William Morris and Christopher Dresser: The Debate over Form versus Function”Ferguson Auditorium, 600 S. Michigan, 1st Floor
The curator of the current exhibition Design in the Age of Darwin at the Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University addresses the uncanny unity of vocabulary and metaphor employed by designers and natural scientists in the generation following the publication in 1859 of Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species. The development of modern design and the growth of evolutionary science were each the result of debates about form and function, adaptation, selection, survival and the laws of growth. Notes art historian and Northwestern professor Eisenman: “the names Christopher Dresser, William Morris and other designers ought therefore to be placed beside those of Darwin, Owen, Huxley and Haeckel when the history of evolutionism is told.”
Film Screening: 6:30 p.m.
Traces of the Trade (DVD, color; 86 min.)
Film Row Cinema, 1104 S. Wabash, 8th Floor
In this feature documentary, filmmaker Katrina Browne discovers that her New England ancestors were the largest slave trading family in U.S. history. She and nine cousins retrace the Triangle Trade and gain a powerful new perspective on the black/white divide. Post screening discussion. This screening is part of Citizen Movement sponsored by Critical Encounters, The Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago and the college’s Ellen Stone Belic Institute for the Study of Women and Gender in the Arts. For more information on this film visit www.tracesofthetrade.org.
Citizen Movement is a film series that uses performance and film to investigate relationships between creativity, activism, politics and history. Upcoming film screenings are John Brown’s Holy War on September 16 and Weather Underground on September 23.These film screenings are followed by a discussion with choreographer David Dorfman and participants TBA.
In related programming, The Dance Center will present David Dorfman Dance, with performances September 25-28. The world premiere Disavowal is an evening-length work inspired by the life and legacy of abolitionist and (in)famous “race traitor” John Brown. David Dorfman Dance also performs the Chicago premiere of underground, an evening-length work that uses the 1960s as a starting point to explore the principles of political activism, in particular the activities of the Weathermen, later known as the Weather Underground. For more details and ticket information for these performances and the Dance Center season, call 312-369-6600 or visit www.colum.edu/dancecenter.
Upcoming October Highlights
(Programming is in development and subject to change. Visit www.colum.edu/criticalencounters for updates. Additional publicity forthcoming.)
October 15: “Bikes, Cars, and the Limits of ‘Automobility’” with Columbia professor Zack Furness. An Intersections lecture in collaboration with the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs.
October 16: Film Screening of Mountain Top Removal and discussion with principals of this film and the film Topless America. www.toplessamerica.org
October 22: Mark Harris on his book Grave Matters: A Journey Through the Funeral Industry to a Natural Way of Burial. A Creative Nonfiction Week presentation.
October (date tbd): “Red, White and Green: The Politics of Human|Nature.” Panel discussion of the environmental positions of major political parties and candidates.
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