LOCAL ECOLOGIES
Featuring: Dan Borelli, María Magdalena Campos-Pons, Duy Hoàng, Sarah Kanouse + Nicholas Brown, Plotform (Jane Marsching + Andi Sutton), Matthew Mazzotta, Evelyn Rydz, and Andrew S. Yang.
Exhibition runs: Jan. 21 – Mar. 6, 2020
Local Ecologies Panel Discussion: Life of the Merrimack: Featuring Kirsten Swenson, John Macone, Evelyn Rydz, and Caitlin & Misha, Tuesday, Feb. 25, 4 - 5:15 p.m. in Coburn Hall 255
Reception and Curators' Remarks: 5:30 - 6:30 p.m. in the University Gallery, Mahoney Hall
These events are free, wheelchair accessible, and open to the public.
The centerpiece of LOCAL ECOLOGIES is a series of multidisciplinary artworks from artists who have lived and worked in Eastern Massachusetts. The three easternmost UMass campuses belong to landscapes with diverse coastal and river ecosystems, as well as layered indigenous, colonial, and industrial histories. LOCAL ECOLOGIES presents place-based artworks by artists Dan Borelli, María Magdalena Campos-Pons, Duy Hoàng, Sarah Kanouse and Nicholas Brown, Plotform (Jane Marsching and Andi Sutton), Matthew Mazzotta, Evelyn Rydz, and Andrew S. Yang. The exhibition is curated by Kirsten Swenson (Art History, UMass Lowell), Sam Toabe (Gallery Director, UMass Boston), and Rebecca Uchill (Art History and Media Studies, UMass Dartmouth).
UMass Lowell, the third and final destination, will feature newly commissioned site-specific works by Evelyn Rydz and Andrew S. Yang. Rydz, a professor at Mass Art, will produce The Mouth: A Merrimack River Project. She will lead painting workshops with UMass Lowell students using Merrimack River water and Ph paper, and will create an installation mapping the river with used drinking glasses. The Merrimack’s compromised ecology—it receives runoff containing PFAS chemicals and sewage overflow—is a tacit reference of Rydz’s work. Rydz will foster a self-aware, embodied engagement with the river that runs through the center of campus and and supplies drinking water for 600,000 residents of the Merrimack Valley.
Yang, a native of Eastern Massachusetts and professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, will create an installation for campus engaging the history of plastics in the region entitled Waste Knot/Want Knot. In the early 20th century, Eastern Massachusetts companies pioneered the mass production of plastics, from Tupperware to combs. Today, overreliance on plastics is associated with a crisis of environmental degradation. Yang will install snake-shaped banners made from waste plastics in the university’s libraries, evoking the “good and evil” conflict of plastics consumption. He has also partnered with the Methuen-based Clean River Project to showcase their important work gathering waste plastics from the Merrimack—some of which will be on view in LOCAL ECOLOGIES.
This exhibition is a pioneering collaboration between faculty and staff in the arts at the three eastern UMass campuses. At UMass Lowell, LOCAL ECOLOGIES has been generously supported by the IDEA Leadership Fund and the Office of Sustainability. Additional funding was provided by the Mass Cultural Council, the Lowell Cultural Council, and the MicroEssential Laboratory.
The University Gallery is accessible to all. Gallery events are free and open to the public. Parking can be found in the Wilder Metered Lot, located at the intersection of Wilder Street and Bachelder Street. The entrance to the lot is located on Bachelder Street. After 4 p.m. visitors may park in any open campus lot.