Amherst Arts Night Plus Open Mic, July 11, 2019

Join us during Amherst Arts Night Plus on July 11, 2019 for our monthly Open Mic. Poets, writers, and performers of any kind are welcome! Come early to view the contemporary art exhibition in Homestead conservatory. The open mic begins at 6:00 p.m. and will be followed by a talk by this month’s featured artist. Those who would like to share their work should arrive between 5:00 and 6:00 p.m. to sign up.

Featured Artwork

On view from 5pm to 8pm

This month’s featured artwork is our Conservatory Art Installation Exhibit, “In Suspension,” by Tereza Swanda, Ingrid Pichler, and Fletcher Boote. The exhibit will be accompanied by a dance piece performed by Kelly Silliman.

Featured Performance

5:45pm, second performance following Open Mic

Kelly Silliman will be activating the conservatory with movement as part of In Suspension. She has created a site-specific dance piece inspired by the shapes and movements of Tereza Swanda’s installation, and by the variant wordings found in the editing process of Emily Dickinson’s poems. The dance is intended to be viewed from all directions, and from both inside and outside the conservatory, and witnesses are invited to move to a different viewing spot at any point in the piece, if they wish.

Tereza Swanda, one of three artists who created “In Suspension”, will speak about the work following the open mic, around 6:45PM.

Conservatory Art Installation Opening Reception, June 21, 2019

conservatory

Friday, June 21

6:30 to 8:00PM

Join us at The Emily Dickinson Museum to celebrate the opening of our inaugural Conservatory Art Installation! Light refreshments will be served and the artists will be present. All are welcome.

Artists Tereza Swanda, Ingrid Pichler, and Fletcher Boote are transforming the Conservatory with a site-specific mixed media installation. The work samples the colors of Emily Dickinson’s landscape in painted paper, and in colored gels that refract light through the space. A soundscape by Fletcher Boote wordlessly references Emily Dickinson’s poetry.

The exhibition will run through the summer.

Learn more about the installation here.

Our Inaugural Conservatory Art Installation Artist Has Been Selected

(AMHERST, Mass., June 10, 2019) – The Emily Dickinson Museum today announced the selected artists from its inaugural Conservatory Art Installation contest. Tereza Swanda, a graduate of the Vermont College of Fine Arts and the Massachusetts College of Art and an Instructor of Art at Dean College, alongside Ingrid Pichler and Fletcher Boote will transform the Conservatory with their exhibit “In Suspension.” A former lecturer at the Millay Colony and Vermont College of Fine Arts, Swanda’s work has been exhibited at the Temporary Agency in Brooklyn, NY, the SRISA Gallery of Contemporary Art in Florence, IT, and the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester, UK, among others. Pichler has worked in architectural glass for thirty years, and her keen understanding of the malleable potential of the medium will inform the installation.

Swanda, Pichler, and Boote will convert Emily Dickinson’s conservatory, a small room where the poet maintained her link to the natural world across the seasons, into a mixed-media exhibition. Taking the Emily Dickinson poem “Nature is what we see” as the starting point, the installation will include colored gels and painted paper that samples colors found in the landscape. In addition to this visual component, the landscape will be translated by Boote into a soundscape that wordlessly references Emily Dickinson’s poetry. The installation may be enjoyed from outside the glass conservatory on the south side of the Homestead, and viewed from inside when the Museum is open. During Amherst Arts Night Plus in July and August, a dance piece will be performed in the space by Kelly Silliman.

The site-specific installation, the first of its kind in the newly restored conservatory, marks a major milestone in the Museum’s mission to not only preserve and celebrate the poetry of Emily Dickinson, but to amplify the voices of artists, musicians, and poets working today. Drawing attention to the importance of the conservatory in the life of Emily Dickinson, these artists’ work will seamlessly integrate contemporary art into this historic setting.

The exhibition will open on Friday, June 21 and run through September 9, 2019. A public reception will be held to celebrate the opening at the Museum on June 21, from 6:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.