The exhibition Where Do We Migrate To?, organized by the Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture, will tour in spring 2012 to the Sheila C. Johnson Design Center at Parsons The New School for Design. Opening on February 2, the exhibition will remain on view through April 15.

Artists Space in New York will host a launch for a book that accompanies the exhibition, also entitled Where Do We Migrate To?, on December 15 from 6 to 8 p.m. Svetlana Boym, an artist whose work is featured in the exhibition and who contributed an essay to the book, will speak.

Curated by Niels Van Tomme, Director of Arts and Media at Provisions Learning Project in Washington, D.C., Where Do We Migrate To? explores contemporary issues of migration as well as experiences of displacement and exile. Situating the contemporary individual in a world of advanced globalization, the artworks address how a multiplicity of migratory encounters demand an increasingly complex understanding of the human condition. As such, the exhibition allows multiple perspectives about its subject matter to unfold simultaneously, opening up a range of political, psychological, poetic, and pragmatic manifestations of the contemporary migrant experience. The exhibition was originally on view at UMBC from March 17 to May 7, 2011.

Image: Xaviera Simmons, (detail) Superunknown (Alive In The), 2010, C-prints mounted on Sintra, dimensions variable/size of installation variable, first produced for Greater New York 2010 MoMA/PS.1.

Timothy Nohe, associate professor of Visual Arts, will exhibit his work Candles for Faust at the in/flux gallery, 307 West Baltimore Street, from November 5 through 19.

Nohe remarks, “Candles for Faust portrays candles, burning at both ends, that eventually extinguish themselves and fall from sight. Stereo recordings were produced of the drumming sound of dripping wax falling on printmaking paper. I imagined the candles as ‘musical instruments’ producing unique and chaotic drum patterns. As the candles attempted to reach equilibrium, teetering back and forth, they tattooed a pattern of wax scatter on the paper below. The resulting wax splashed detritus exists on the surface of the prints as a record of time and residue of the beating wax drummer, long extinguished.” A condensed video is available for viewing on Professor Nohe’s tumblr site.

A video piece created in 2010 by Vin Grabill (associate professor and chair, Visual Arts) and his son, Elliott, was accepted as one of nineteen finalists for the Rosebud Film & Video Festival. The 8-minute video “Kings Highway/Stillwell Ave., Brooklyn” will be screened along with the other eighteen works on Saturday, November 12, and an awards ceremony will take place Sunday, November 13, in Arlington, Virginia.

“Kings Highway/Stillwell Ave., Brooklyn” started as a piece of music for piano written by Elliott Grabill. Vin Grabill made a video recording of his son playing “Kings Highway” at a performance in Washington, D.C. in October 2010. Subsequently Elliott provided several hundred digital photos he had taken during his time in New York, and together Elliott and Vin decided how to edit these images in and around the performance video footage. The video can seen on the small screen at: http://vimeo.com/17421636

2011 Rosebud Nominee Showcase
Saturday, November 12, 2011, beginning at 12:30 PM
Dome Theater at Artisphere
1101 Wilson Blvd.
Arlington, VA 22209
(2 blocks from Rosslyn Metro Station)

2011 Rosebud Awards Ceremony
Sunday, November 13, 2011, beginning at 7:00 PM
Clarendon Ballroom
3185 Wilson Blvd.
Arlington, VA 22201
(1 block from Clarendon Metro Station)

Kelley Bell, assistant professor of Visual Arts (and Visual Arts MFA ’05) has created one of the most visible artworks in Baltimore: she is illuminating the clock faces on the downtown Bromo Seltzer Tower. The Baltimore Sun‘s Mary Carole McCauley wrote a major feature that appeared on the paper’s front page on November 4, and the City Paper‘s Baynard Woods contributed a feature in the paper’s November 2 issue. Both features include videos. Professor Bell’s projections on the clock faces begin at sunset on Saturday, November 5 and will continue for approximately five weeks.

(Above, Bill Shewbridge and Lynn Casabon receive a proclamation from Sam Moxley, representing the county executive. Photo by Vin Grabill.)

In celebration of the new Arbutus Branch of the Baltimore County Public Library, UMBC faculty and students worked with members of the surrounding community to display historic railroad photographs and create a series of digital stories about the area through residents’ eyes.

Lynn Cazabon, associate chair and associate professor of art, worked with students to create a series of mural-sized prints from historical photographs of the railroad in the Arbutus area, which are on permanent display in the new Arbutus Branch.

Intercultural Video Communication students, led by Bill Shewbridge, director of the New Media Studio, collaborated with community residents to combine photos, images and oral history for a series of short films. In “Arbutus Stories,” residents reflect on the community, share experiences and describe their hometown.

The digital stories are available on the Baltimore County Public Library and UMBC New Media Studio websites.

Below is an overview of the project:

Below is the digital story, “38 and a Half Years”: