“Without Limits” Spring Programming Announced
This spring, the wall between the Sojourner Truth Library and the Fine Arts Building is about to get a lot brighter. Beginning April 25, artist Pau Quintanajornet will be painting a mural on a wooden canvas attached to the wall, the first time that the high-traffic area will be used for public art.
Quintanajornet’s mural is part of the college’s “Without Limits” programming, an event series launched in fall 2015 that spotlights the breadth and dynamism of the ideas, research, and creative projects ongoing in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, and makes clear the college’s connections to the broader New Paltz community and everyday life. This year’s theme, “Screens and Scenes,” investigates the transformative role of the screen – whether mural, phone, film, computer, television or tablet – in 21st-century life.
The artist’s mural, titled KRA, which means “moon” in Selk’nam, an indigenous Latin American language, draws on the Latin American legacy of mural painting, which poet Pablo Neruda called “the books of the people.” The mural shows a female figure reclining in a nest of bold-colored, natural forms that resemble flower petals, fish scales, feathers, and leaves. Quintanajornet, who splits her time between Germany and Chile, sees the mural as a way to “bring something of the southern hemisphere up to the northern to establish an exchange, a dialogue between the Americas, connecting people through unifying visual imagery.” The project’s goal, she says, “is to create something universal, something that makes you feel a connection to something larger, to rethink your perspectives and help create a consciousness about your own being.” Previous murals have gone up in Quito, Berlin, Amsterdam, Tunis, and Asbury Park, New Jersey. Jessica Pabón (Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies) invited Quintanajornet to campus last summer, with support from “Without Limits” organizers Ken Nystrom (Anthropology) and Cyrus Mulready (English).
Given the growing number of Latino students coming to New Paltz – some 16 percent of the student population as of 2013 – the mural’s installation is especially timely, says Pabón, who sees the public art piece as a demonstration of the university’s commitment to fostering diversity and an inclusive environment. Following the mural’s installation, Pabón and César Barros (Languages, Literatures and Cultures, Latin American and Caribbean Studies ) will join Quintanajornet for a panel discussion about the work on April 27 at 4 p.m. in the Coykendall Science Building (CSB) Auditorium.
“Without Limits” wraps up with an April 28 lecture by Brittney Cooper, whom Mulready calls “a leading voice on feminism and African-American culture.” Cooper’s talk, “Dis-Respectability: Towards a Ratchet Black Feminism” will argue “for a distinct turn away from the politics of respectability, for an intentional embrace of ‘ratchetness,’ as a form of feminist celebration and resistance.” Cooper, assistant professor of Women’s and Gender Studies and Africana Studies at Rutgers University, co-founded the Crunk Feminist Collective blog, which New York magazine named a top feminist blog in 2011 and which TheRoot.com cited as a top race blog in 2012. A reception will be held in the CSB Lobby after her 4 p.m. lecture.
“We are fortunate to have two internationally-known figures on campus this spring: Dr. Brittney Cooper, a leading voice on feminism and African-American culture, and the artist Pau, whose painting can be seen on streets and in galleries around the world,” says Mulready. “What unites these presenters is their understanding of how culture, art, and politics are now experienced in and through digital media. Their work represents how transformative ‘Screens and Scenes’ have been to many dimensions of twenty-first century world, where we can view paintings from the streets of Chile and communicate in new ways about constructions of race and gender in American society.”
“Without Limits” is supported by the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences; The Office of Academic Affairs; The College of Fine and Performing Arts; Campus Auxiliary Services; James H. Ottaway Sr. Visiting Professorship; Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies Program; Languages, Literatures and Cultures Department; and Latin American and Caribbean Studies Program.
For more information, visit the Without Limits website.
– Rachel Somerstein is an assistant professor of journalism at SUNY New Paltz.