Mason School of Art | Visual Voices

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Visual Voices

Visual Voices Colloquium is the Professional Lecture Series of the School of Art & Design and represents a window into the professional world of art and design. Speakers are chosen with faculty guidance to represent leading and emerging talented practitioners, as well as artists whose work lies beyond the subject areas of the program offerings.

The purpose of the course and the program is to broaden students’ exposure and vocabulary to professional work being created today. It also provides an opportunity for Art & Design students and members of the public to interact with speakers via a virtual Q&A following their lecture, giving them the chance to exchange ideas and pose questions to the guest speakers.

This semester our Visual Voices lecture series will be presented live virtually via Zoom. The following dates and times are for the live lectures hosted by Mason Arts at Home. If you miss the live presentations, recordings of the lectures will be available one week after the live event and will remain viewable until the close of the semester. Recordings of the lectures will be available at https://art.gmu.edu/visual-voices/.

To participate in the live events you must register. Registration links can be found below. These live events are free to attend and open to the public.

For more information please contact: Jeffrey Kenney – jkenney5@gmu.edu

Spring 2022 Schedule

For Spring 2022, all lectures will be presented virtually via a live Zoom meeting at 7:30 PM. Attendees must register beforehand to receive a link to the Zoom meeting. Registration links are forthcoming and will be added below to each event.

Students are encouraged to ask the artist questions directly. The artist will leave time at the end of their lecture to take questions asked live.

Please expand the artists’ names below to find out more about the speakers.

February 10, 2022- Wanda Raimundi-Ortiz

Thursday, February 10, 2022 @ 7:30 PM EST

Wanda Raimundi- Ortiz

Wanda Raimundi-Ortiz is an award-winning, interdisciplinary artist whose trans genre work spans video, performance art, installation, drawing, mural making, and spoken word. Raimundi-Ortiz’s work reflects her Puerto Rican culture, concerns with contemporary society, and issues of intersectionality.

Raimundi-Ortiz’s recognitions include 2021 Herb Alpert Award nominee, 2018 UCF Women of Distinction, 2017 UCF Luminary Award, 2016 Franklin Furnace award, 2016 USA Fellowship nominee, among others. She has exhibited both nationally and internationally. Exhibitions include Constant Storm at USF Contemporary Art Museum; the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery’s IDENTIFY: Performance as Portraiture series; Project 35: Last Call at the Garage Museum, Russia; The Florida Prize in Contemporary Art, Orlando, FL 2015; Manifesta 8, Spain 2010; American Chambers at the Gyeongnam Art Museum, South Korea; Performa 05 biennial at Artist Space, NY; The S Files 05 at Museo de Arte, Puerto Rico; Artist in the Marketplace 25 at the Bronx Museum of the Arts; and The L Factor at Exit Art, New York, among others.

Raimundi-Ortiz received her MFA in 2008 from Rutgers University’s Mason Gross School of Art where she was a Ralph Bunche Fellow, which funds graduate students and scholars to study and support research on the conditions of Black life. She is also a 2002 alum of Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. Raimundi-Ortiz is currently an associate professor of studio art at the University of Central Florida.

February 24, 2022- Laurel Nakadate

Thursday, February 24, 2022 @ 7:30 PM EST

Laurel Nakadate

Laurel Nakadate is a photographer, filmmaker, video, and performance artist. For twenty-five years she has investigated her relationship with strangers through stories built on camera. Located through chance encounters, DNA tests, open casting calls, family histories, and unsolicited email communication, these strangers were invited by Nakadate to participate in performances that bridge the worlds of fact and fiction, documentary and constructed narrative.

Nakadate’s first feature film, “Stay the Same Never Change,” premiered at the Sundance Film festival and went on to be featured in New Directors/New Films at Lincoln Center. Her second feature film, “The Wolf Knife” was nominated for a Gotham Award and an Independent Spirit Award. Her ten-year survey of photography, video, and performance work, “Only the Lonely,” premiered at MoMA PS1. Nakadate has completed two monographs, 365 Days: A Catalogue of Tears published by Hate Cantz, and Strangers and Relations published by the Des Moines Art Center. Nakadate’s most recent projects include the photo series, “The Kingdom,” and the critically acclaimed group show, “Mother,” co-curated with Leslie Tonkonow Artworks + Projects in New York City, which traveled to New Mexico State University Art Gallery in 2020.

Nakadate’s work is in many collections including the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Yale University Art Gallery, the Hessel Museum of Art, Bard College, Princeton University Art Museum, Smith College Museum of Art, LACMA, and the Guggenheim Museum.

March 10, 2022- Paul Rucker

Thursday, March 10, 2022 @7:30 PM EST

Paul Rucker

Paul Rucker is a multimedia visual artist, composer, and musician. His practice often integrates live performance, original musical compositions, and visual art installation. For nearly two decades, Rucker has used his own brand of art-making as a social practice, which illuminates the legacy of enslavement in America and its relationship to the current socio-political moment. His work is the product of a rich interactive process, through which he investigates community impacts, human rights issues, historical research, and basic human emotions.

Rucker has received numerous grants, awards, and residencies for visual art and music. He is a 2012 Creative Capital Grantee in visual art as well as 2014, 2018, 2019 MAP (Multi-Arts Production) Fund Grantee for performance. In 2015 he received a prestigious Joan Mitchell Painters & Sculptors Grant as well as the Mary Sawyer Baker Award. In 2016 Paul received the Rauschenberg Artist as Activist fellowship and the Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship, for which he is the first artist in residence at the new National Museum of African American Culture.

Rucker’s residencies include MacDowell Colony, Blue Mountain Center, Ucross Foundation, Art OMI, Banff Centre, Pilchuck Glass School, Rauschenberg Residency, Joan Mitchell Residency, Loghave, Montalvo, Hermitage, Hemera Artist Retreat, Air Serembe, Creative Alliance, and the Rockefeller Foundation Study Center in Bellagio, Italy. He will be a Master Teacher at the Atlantic Center for the Arts in 2021. In 2013-2015, he was the Robert W. Deutsch Foundation Artist in Residence and Research Fellow at the Maryland Institute College of Art. He was awarded a 2017 John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, a 2018 TED Fellowship, a 2020 TED Senior Fellowship, and the 2018 Arts Innovator Award from the Dale and Leslie Chihuly Foundation and Artist Trust. His most recent award is a 2020 Art for Justice Fund Fellowship.

April 7, 2022- Mario Rossero

Thursday, April 7, 2022 @ 7:30 PM EST

Mario Rossero

Mario R. Rossero is the Executive Director of the National Art Education Association (NAEA), the leading professional membership organization that champions visual arts, design, and media arts education. He is an experienced art educator with roles as a museum educator, classroom art teacher, and adjunct professor and has held a number of supervision/administration roles in Pittsburgh and Chicago school systems. As Director of Arts for Chicago Public Schools, Mario spearheaded the first strategic arts education plan for the city aimed at increasing equity and access to arts education for all students. Prior to his current role, he was the Senior Vice President of Education for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC. He serves on a number of advisory boards and is a practicing visual artist.

Past Speakers have included:

Image at top of page: Buzz Spector: I stack things. I tear stuff up.