Announcing 2021 Open House/Open Studios

November 8–12, 2021
Virtual via Zoom (All times CST)

Announcing this year's Open House/Open Studios! Learn about the School of Art & Art History and its various departments and programs through conversations and info sessions. See what students are working on through presentations and Open Studios. Free and open to the public.

Monday, November 8:
Gallery 400 Voices Lecture: Nicole Marroquin
4:00pm
Love for Future Unfinished Movements
Nicole Marroquin will present some antidotes to despair including an update on Diana Solis' temporarily lost photo archive, (Activating a Queer Latinx Feminist Archive), her research on Black and Latinx high school walkouts in Chicago, and other provocations to envision futures through recovered pasts. Marroquin is a teacher educator and artist who explores spatial justice, belonging and Chicago’s Latinx history through projects that decenter dominant narratives to address displacement and erasure. She researches student uprisings in Chicago Public Schools and queer Chicanx public memory with the goal of recuperating public memory of youth and women’s leadership in the struggle for justice.
Registration link »

Tuesday, November 9:
Art History Discussion
2:00–4:00pm
The Department of Art History will host a lively and informal online discussion between recent alumni and current students. Topics will include how to envision an Art History degree as preparation for a range of career paths, strategies for navigating the job market, and how to achieve a work/life balance.

Our alumni speakers:
Daniel Dunson (BA, 2016), Director of Curatorial Affairs for the DuSable Museum of African American History and founder of Legacy Brothers, an artist development consultancy.

Shiloh Aderhold Holley (MA, 2012), Executive Director at the Morris-Jumel Mansion Museum and former Executive Director of the Edith Wilson Bolling Birthplace Museum.

Deepthi Murali (PhD, 2020), a postdoctoral research fellow at the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media at George Mason University, and producer of the Humanities Without Walls podcast PhD Futures Now!

Zoom link »

IDEAS Project Presentations
3:00pm
Meet with faculty and current capstone students for presentations of projects-in-progress and a roundtable about creating interdisciplinary projects.
Zoom link »

Wednesday, November 10:
MFA Info Session for Prospective Students led by Jen Delos Reyes
12:00pm
Interested in the MFA program at UIC? Join us for an MFA Info Session to learn more!
Zoom link » 

Thursday, November 11:
Art Education Today
4:00–5:30pm
What does it mean to be an art educator today? What is the role of art education, in ordinary and extraordinary times, in re-imagining possibilities for what school can be? Join Art Education faculty, current students, and alumni for a conversation and presentation of recent projects and collaborations. Come and hear how the first year of art teaching is going for some of our recent graduates. This session will be an opportunity to find out more about UIC's BFA in Art Education program, ask questions, and get answers from the student perspective.
Zoom link »

MUSE Program
Should I Stay or Should I Go: A Conversation on Leaving the Museum
6:00pm

In 2020 the ongoing pandemic had museums shuttered around the world. As the year wore on many of us watched in horror and suffered the consequences as museums abandoned their staff, firing some of the most precarious and vulnerable museum workers. Now that museums are reopening their doors, should we ever go back? With the histories of colonialist practices, demands for repatriation of objects, tainted funding, political snafoos, endless labor issues and more, is it time to abandon the museum for good?

Join graduates of the UIC Museum and Exhibitions Studies program Devin Malone, Jeanine Pollard in conversation with Laura Raicovich whose tumultuous experience at the Queens Museum as its former Director informs her new book Culture Strike: Art and Museums in an Age of Protest (Verso).

Devin Malone (they/them) is an arts worker based in Brooklyn. They build bridges between ideas, forms, and communities and have organized dynamic public programs and learning experiences at Dia Art Foundation, The Museum of Modern Art, The Studio Museum in Harlem, and Gallery 400. They are a 2017 graduate of the UIC Museum and Exhibition Studies program.

Jeanine Pollard (she/her) is a NYC-based educator and cultural org worker. She evaluates and designs accessible learning experiences in a variety of different contexts, including bicultural bilingual schools for the deaf, art museums, and most recently online. She is a 2018 graduate of the UIC Museum and Exhibition Studies master’s program.

Laura Raicovich (she/her) is dedicated to art and artistic production that relies on complexity, poetics, and care to create a more engaged and equitable civic realm. Her latest book, Culture Strike: Art and Museums in an Age of Protest (Verso 2021) was published in June. She most recently served as interim director of the Leslie Lohman Museum of Art, a museum devoted to queer art and artists and is the recipient of both the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Fellowship and the inaugural Emily H. Tremaine Journalism Fellowship for Curators at Hyperallergic. 

Zoom link »

Friday, November 12:
BFA Open Studios
5:00–7:00pm
BFA Thesis is a production, discussion, and critique class for advanced art majors at UIC. During this semester and next, students work independently, beyond assignments, in a rigorous process of research, production, and presentation of completed projects. During this live online event, students will each show a work of art and discuss issues and ideas they are working through in their final year at UIC. Also featuring a "virtual potluck"!!

Featuring:
Luis Alvarez
Jasmine Amir
Kiran Auby
Jenellie Berrios
George Booth
Odin Centeno
Esteban Chiwil-Espana
Heaven Creater
Denia Fountain
Miah Gholar
Velle Henderson
Avery Henegar
Braulio Herrera-Ortega
Emery Jordan
Rafaella Las
Lucie Maier
Millenna Mitchell
Emily Oliver
Victoria Perez
Pari Rankavat
Tim Reyes
Clare Ryndak
Haley Schnack
Kevin Silva
Jeffrey Stahl
Jamilex Tinoco Lara
Peter Viernes
Kellie Williams

Zoom link »

MFA Open Studios
7:00–9:00pm
Join our MFA class of 2022 and 2023 for a virtual night of open studios Friday November 12 from 7pm-9pm. Tour the studios, and chat with the artists!

Zoom Link »