Owning Earth: Fine arts students, faculty, alumni featured in Unison Arts exhibition opening June 26
An outdoor sculpture exhibition opening in New Paltz this weekend will showcase work from multiple representatives of the College’s School of Fine & Performing Arts.
The Unison Arts exhibition “Owning Earth” features 20 original installations including work by MFA students Erin Antonak ’20g (Studio Art), Emilie Houssart ’21g (Studio Art), Sariah Park ’20g (Studio Art) and John Stowe ’20g (Studio Art), BFA student Joel Olzak ’20 (Sculpture), MFA Coordinator Matthew Friday, and Lecturer Michael Asbill. Antonak also served as assistant curator.
The exhibition is free and open to the public and will open on Saturday, June 26, at 1 p.m. in the Unison Arts Sculpture Garden at 68 Mountain Rest Road in New Paltz. Curator Tal Beery will provide a guided walk-through at 2 p.m. Footwear for walking on wood-chipped trails and grass is recommended.
“Owning Earth” is comprised of original installations that challenge notions of ownership and domination over our environments, and imagine alternatives based in mutuality and reverence. The artists each confront the intolerable cruelty of deeply entrenched systems of domination – over our environment, other species, and other humans – and provide tools to imagine and build just futures in our region and beyond.
Among other works, the artists in Owning Earth weaved flags created from site-specific soil profiles, laid patterns of the legendary Underground Railroad Quilt Code, erected monuments to bee democracy, and built outdoor laboratories to test radical climate solutions.
Owning Earth will remain on view through June 1, 2022. More information at this link.