Erin Williams

Technology and Dance Workshop with Linda Ryan

PlySpace and Cornerstone Center for the Arts are excited to pair with PlySpace Resident Linda Ryan to offer free public workshops on dancing and movement with technology.  Ryan’s dance and choreographic work explores dance performance with unconventional costumes, tools, and technologies. She has created movement with velcro suits, wearable audio speakers, GoPro action cameras, and more. 

While in residence at PlySpace, Linda will be researching new technological tools for dancing, including the creation of a heat sensitive modular flooring.  As part of her community collaborative project, she will conduct a series of workshops that explore tools and methods any dancer can use to enhance their practice.

The workshops will all be held at Cornerstone Center for the Arts. Participants should register through the Cornerstone website to reserve a space.

Saturday, November 3rd from 1:00 - 2:30 PM

Dance Technology for (Beginner) Adults

This 1.5 hour workshop is part dance technique class, part technology workshop. Come try out some of the gadgets Linda uses in her professional work and learn a dance combination to go with them! No dance experience necessary. This workshop is suitable for ages 16 and up. Wear simple dance attire with socks or bare feet.

Register here for the Adult Beginner Workshop: https://cornerstonearts.org/collections/adult-workshops-1/products/dance-technology-workshop-for-beginner-adults

Participants in the beginner workshop are also welcome to participate in the following Adult Advanced workshop:

Saturday, November 17th from 1:00 - 3:00 PM

Dance Technology for (Advanced) Adults

This 2-hour workshop includes a dance class, a short lecture, and a Q & A session all centered around the role of digital technology in art and performance. Come and learn about the performances Linda creates and make some for yourself! Dance experience preferred. Suitable for ages 16 and up. Wear simple dance attire with socks or bare feet.

Register Here for the Advanced Workshop: https://cornerstonearts.myshopify.com/collections/adult-workshops-1/products/dance-technology-workshop-for-advanced-adults

Linda holds a BA in Dance from the George Washington University's Corcoran School of the Arts & Design, where she received the Luther Rice Research Fellowship as well as the Enosinian Scholars Grant. She is an award-winning dance researcher, conducting movement research and experiential choreography both internationally and at home in the US. Her previous performances include work by The Maida Withers Dance Construction Company, Vladimir Conde Reche, Annika B. Lewis, I-Fen Tung, and Anton Ovchinnikov. Linda worked in Washington, DC until 2018 and is now based in upstate New York.

Learn more at www.plyspace.org/events

Dance Technology with Linda Ryan

Dance Technology for (Advanced) Adults

This 2-hour workshop includes a dance class, a short lecture, and a Q & A session all centered around the role of digital technology in art and performance. Come and learn about the performances Linda creates and make some for yourself! Dance experience preferred. Suitable for ages 16 and up. Wear simple dance attire with socks or bare feet.

Register Here for the Advanced Workshop: https://cornerstonearts.myshopify.com/collections/adult-workshops-1/products/dance-technology-workshop-for-advanced-adults

Linda holds a BA in Dance from the George Washington University's Corcoran School of the Arts & Design, where she received the Luther Rice Research Fellowship as well as the Enosinian Scholars Grant. She is an award-winning dance researcher, conducting movement research and experiential choreography both internationally and at home in the US. Her previous performances include work by The Maida Withers Dance Construction Company, Vladimir Conde Reche, Annika B. Lewis, I-Fen Tung, and Anton Ovchinnikov. Linda worked in Washington, DC until 2018 and is now based in upstate New York.

Learn more at www.plyspace.org/events

Thaw: Dance Performance using a thermochromic (heat-sensitive) floor. Experiment in Tension: Fiber deconstruction using a GoPro camera attached to the body.

Join us on First Thursday for a PlySpace Artist-in-Residence Double Feature with performances by current Fall 2018 resident Linda Ryan and past Spring 2018 resident Melissa Joy Livermore.

Experiment in Tension //A collaborative performance with Melissa Joy Livermore and Linda Ryan

Start Time: 2 performances, one starting at 6:00 PM and one starting at 7:00 PM

Location: PlySpace Gallery

Deconstruction is a practice of slowing down to engage in the present moment. The many iterations of the project have emphasized the mental space for contemplation and conversation created by removing thread after thread from a piece of fabric. “Experiment in Tension” shifts the focus to the body -- by performing a repetitive action in collaboration, the work expands Deconstruction to a multi-person endeavor centered on the mental and physical spaces we can share with others. 

The Thaw // A dance performance by Linda Ryan

Start Time: 2 performances, one starting at 6:30 PM and one starting at 7:30 PM

Location: PlySpace Gallery

“The Thaw” is a dance performed on a thermochromic (heat-sensitive) floor that changes color upon contact with the dancer's body. PlySpace Resident Linda Ryan will dance, crawl, roll, and run on the floor to create an ephemeral record of movement and body heat that will remain in memory but fade with time. This performance is the culmination of the creative research she has completed while at PlySpace this fall.

Each performance will last about 20 minutes. There will be a short break (5-10 minutes) between performances. Please arrive and take a seat 5 minutes before the performance start time. 

All performances will be held in the PlySpace Gallery, at 608 E. Main Street. Parking is available at the northeast corner of Main and Monroe Streets. Please use the gallery entrance on the west side of the building, located directly off of the parking lot.

More information about the PlySpace Residency Program can be found on the PlySpace website at www.PlySpace.org. 

PlySpace is a program of Muncie Arts and Culture Council in partnership with the City of Muncie, Ball State University School of Art, and Sustainable Muncie Corporation. PlySpace is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Lay Your Body Down - Drone Yoga

Daniel Chamberlin and Mark Perretta will host Lay Your Body Down - Drone Yoga, monthly Yin yoga sessions at the PlySpace Gallery. The happenings will include a 75-minute yoga and meditation practice accompanied by layers of live, reverberating keyboard sounds and undulating visuals.

- $10 Drop-in
- $5 Muncie Arts & Culture Council members or students
- Free with Muncie Arts & Culture Council membership purchase at sign-in

Everyone is welcome. No experience necessary. Please bring your own mat. Comfortable clothes are recommended. Yin is a slow, chill (both in vibe and temperature) form of yoga, so you may want to wear layers and customize as the practice unfolds.

The PlySpace Gallery has room for about 20 participants. RSVPs are not required, but if you need the slowdown, the tape loops, the keyboard drones, and the undulating botanical mandala projections like we do and want to make sure there's space for you, simply email Daniel Chamberlin at daniel.chamberlin@gmail.com and remember to include date information!

Parking is available in the lot at the northeast corner of Main and Monroe Streets. Please use the PlySpace Gallery entrance directly off the parking lot.

Muncie Arts & Culture Council is pleased to welcome Lay Your Body Down - Drone Yoga to the PlySpace Gallery. Learn more about MACC and sign up for membership on our website at www.munciearts.org

Kevin Titzer // PlySpace Spring Fellow

Kevin Titzer is the Spring Fellow at PlySpace, an artist-in-residence program of the Muncie Arts and Culture Council. He will speak about his work and his practice at the School of Art at Ball State University.

Titzer was born and raised in Evansville, Indiana in the United States, although he has been based in the Saguenay region of Quebec for the last nine years. His sculptures are predominantly created from found and scavenged materials. His site-specific installation work is often crafted from materials gathered at the location of construction and formed into improvised house structures. These structures are highly informed by the communities they are created in. Titzer has been exhibiting professionally in art galleries for twenty years and his work has been shown in Canada, Mexico, Japan, UK, and across the United States.

FaceMePorFavor

PlySpace will hold an Open Studio on the second floor of Madjax on the first Thursday in March, from 5-8 PM. All four of the Spring term residents will offer glimpses into their creative practice and will be available to answer questions about their upcoming projects.

Kevin Titzer
Kevin Titzer was born and raised in Evansville, Indiana in the United States, although he has been based in the Saguenay region of Quebec for the last nine years. His sculptures are predominantly created from found and scavenged materials. His site-specific installation work is often crafted from materials gathered at the location of construction and formed into improvised house structures. These structures are highly informed by the communities they are created in. Titzer has been exhibiting professionally in art galleries for twenty years and his work has been shown in Canada, Mexico, Japan, UK, and across the United States.  

Siena Hancock
Siena Hancock is an interdisciplinary artist who makes sculpture, interactive installation and artist books/zines. A Boston native, Hancock graduated Massachusetts College of Art with her BFA in 2016. She has recently completed an installation at the Dirt Palace in Providence, RI and a residency at Main St Arts in Upstate, New York. Research plays an important role in Hancock’s practice, utilizing an ethnographic approach she records interviews with women as part of ongoing project Feminist Utopias. Her current work deals with cyberfeminism, alternative realities, mythology, and how technology affects social customs. 

Matt Litwin & Victoria Eidelsztein (FaceMePor Favor)
After graduating from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago seven years ago, Matt Litwin started his own business, Limpio Designs. The name Limpio, which means clean in Spanish, was created to help ‘clean’ oppressive environments in Chicago with positive and colorful artwork. Through Limpio, Litwin had the opportunity to work as a traveling muralist and street artist. Within the medium of murals, he painted artwork that celebrates natural ecosystems and endangered animals. These murals often juxtapose the monotone grey walls of the city with the bold and pastel colors that he paints using aerosols and latex paints. Through his travels, Litwin has inspiration from people in Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Thailand, Canada, and the United States. 

Victoria Eidelsztein (Argentina) has a degree in Visual Arts with an orientation in print making. Since 2008 she has exhibited her work in different collective and individual exhibitions: Palais de Glace Museum, La Sin Futuro, El Ojo Errante Gallery, Panal 361 Artist Residency, Freudian School of Buenos Aires, among others. After graduating in 2013, she has been teaching art in different spaces in Buenos Aires: Flexible Lab, Pinta Conmigo and also at Martín Buber and September elementary schools. Her work has progressed through various media: printmaking, drawing, digital art and painting. For the last couple of years Victoria focused her work on portraits. In January and February 2019, Victoria will be a resident artist at Women's Studio Workshop in Rosendale, New York.

Learn more about the residents, the program, and the upcoming community projects at www.plyspace.org.

PlySpace is a program of Muncie Arts and Culture Council in partnership with the City of Muncie, Ball State University School of Art, and Sustainable Muncie Corporation. PlySpace is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Lay Your Body Down - Drone Yoga

Daniel Chamberlin and Mark Perretta will host Lay Your Body Down - Drone Yoga, monthly Yin yoga sessions at the PlySpace Gallery. The happenings will include a 75-minute yoga and meditation practice accompanied by layers of live, reverberating keyboard sounds and undulating visuals.

- $10 Drop-in
- $5 Muncie Arts & Culture Council members or students
- Free with Muncie Arts & Culture Council membership purchase at sign-in

Everyone is welcome. No experience necessary. Please bring your own mat. Comfortable clothes are recommended. Yin is a slow, chill (both in vibe and temperature) form of yoga, so you may want to wear layers and customize as the practice unfolds.

The PlySpace Gallery has room for about 20 participants. RSVPs are not required, but if you need the slowdown, the tape loops, the keyboard drones, and the undulating botanical mandala projections like we do and want to make sure there's space for you, simply email Daniel Chamberlin at daniel.chamberlin@gmail.com and remember to include date information!

Parking is available in the lot at the northeast corner of Main and Monroe Streets. Please use the PlySpace Gallery entrance directly off the parking lot.

Muncie Arts & Culture Council is pleased to welcome Lay Your Body Down - Drone Yoga to the PlySpace Gallery. Learn more about MACC and sign up for membership on our website at www.munciearts.org

Kevin Titzer sculpture installation

Join us for the opening of Nowhere To Be And All Day To Get There // An Installation by PlySpace Resident Fellow Kevin Titzer

First Thursday // April 4th // 5 - 8 PM
Artist talk at 7:00 PM
PlySpace Gallery
608 E. Main Street, Muncie, IN
Free and open to the public

Additional open gallery hours:
Friday, April 5th // 3-7 PM
Saturday, April 6th // 10-2 PM
Thursday, April 11th // 3-7 PM
Friday, April 12th // 3-7 PM
Saturday, April 13th // 3-7 PM

Kevin Titzer is currently the Spring Fellow at PlySpace, an artist residency program of the Muncie Arts and Culture Council. "Nowhere To Be And All Day To Get There" Is the fifth installment of an ongoing project started at the end of 2017 in which Titzer traveled to different communities, such as Guadalajara, Mexico; Bloomington, Indiana; and Quebec, Canada, to create art from local resources. Through the process of scavenging materials and meeting people in the region, he worked to take in the feel of each place and its history. Titzer says, "Often different communities value and discard different things. This makes each installment unique and couldn't be created in any other place or time."

The installation at PlySpace uses found, donated, and scavenged materials from around the area. Some of the found-object sculptures and structures will have interactive elements, like electronic movement or sound, activated by the viewer. Titzer says his final exhibition is a mix of his own experiences and reactions, "I'm left with an amalgam of images that filters through the studio. What emerges is an impressionistic view of my time spent in a specific region. In this respect, the art often reflects aspects of that community, but isn't a one to one portrait per se."

Titzer has been working with Ball State School of Art Students in the 3D Foundations courses to explore the use of found objects in sculpture. The two classes he has worked with will be contributing found-object bird sculptures to the final exhibition, each designed and crafted by a different student.

Kevin Titzer was born and raised in Evansville, Indiana in the United States, although he has been based in the Saguenay region of Quebec for the last nine years. He has been exhibiting professionally in art galleries for twenty years and his work has been shown in Canada, Mexico, Japan, UK, and across the United States. You can learn more about his work at kevintitzer.com and at www.plyspace.org.

Muncie Arts and Culture Council is a nonprofit organization and the designated Arts partner for the City of Muncie. PlySpace is a program of the MACC in partnership with the City of Muncie, Ball State University School of Art and Sustainable Muncie Corporation. PlySpace is supported in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Learn more at www.munciearts.org and www.plyspace.org

PlySpace Porch Party @ 608 East Main Street!

It's been a long winter, but we are ready to warm up on Friday, April 12th from 4-8 PM at the PlySpace Porch Party!

All ages are invited to learn about Zine-Making with Siena Hancock, Watch a Paste-Paper Demo with Face Me Por Favor artists Matt Litwin and Victoria Eidelsztein, and catch Nowhere To Be And All Day To Get There, the final exhibition for Kevin Titzer in the PlySpace Gallery!

It's a great time to visit the neighborhood as well! Check out Interrobang Wayzgoose, a regional festival of Book Arts at Tribune Showprint in Madjax Muncie on Friday, April 12th at 7PM, or check out Muncie Brewfest at the Cornerstone Center for the Arts on Saturday, April 13th.

Come and learn more about the PlySpace Artist Residency during this fun-filled evening of events and activities! All ages are welcome.

PlySpace is a program of Muncie Arts and Culture Council in partnership with the City of Muncie, Ball State University School of Art, and Sustainable Muncie Corporation. PlySpace is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.

PlySpace, (www.plyspace.org) an Artist Residency Program of the Muncie Arts and Culture Council, will be wrapping up the Spring Residency Term with a panel discussion and presentation organized and moderated by resident Siena Hancock. Girl Talk: Storytelling as Advocacy will be held at the PlySpace Gallery (608 E. Main St, Muncie, IN 47305) on Thursday, May 9th, from 6-8 PM.

Girl Talk: Storytelling as Advocacy will feature the voices of Ashleigh Bingham, Jill Christman, and Angie Roger-Howells, women who navigate the stories of women in Muncie through their storytelling and interview practices. Hancock will lead the discussion, focusing on how sharing the narratives of women’s experiences can serve as a catalyst for social change. During the event, she will also speak about the Community Collaborative project she has completed this spring as part of her residency.

Hancock joined PlySpace as an artist-in-residence in February of 2019. During her time in Muncie, she has conducted over 30 interviews with local citizens that discuss community, activism, and technology. Hancock is an interdisciplinary artist from Boston, Massachusetts. She graduated from Massachusetts College of Art with her Bachelors of Fine Arts in 2016, and has recently completed an installation at the Dirt Palace in Providence, Rhode Island and a residency at Main St. Arts in Upstate, New York. She will depart PlySpace this May.

More information about PlySpace Spring Term events can be found on the PlySpace website at www.PlySpace.org/events and the PlySpace Facebook page. Questions or comments about the PlySpace Residency program, events, and community collaborations can be directed to the Residency Coordinator, Erin Williams, at hello@plyspace.org.

PlySpace is a program of Muncie Arts and Culture Council in partnership with the City of Muncie, Ball State University School of Art, and Sustainable Muncie Corporation. PlySpace is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Photo credit: Deborah Cannon

PlySpace’s first playwright-in-residence, Adrienne Dawes (Heckle Her), will share the first draft of her new play Untitled Adoption Play, written during her residency with PlySpace in Summer 2019. The reading will take place on Friday, July 12th, at 7 PM at the PlySpace Gallery. This event is free and open to the public, but RSVP is appreciated (Link to Eventbright). Doors open at 6:30, and light refreshments will be served. Please plan to be in your seats at 7 PM for the start of the show. There will be a short intermission during the reading. This play has some mature content and language so is not recommended for children under the age of 16.

Untitled Adoption Play is a dark comedy that explores “adoption disruptions” and the evils of well-intentioned people. Audiences are invited to join a free dramatic reading of the play-in-progress. Dawes will be joined on stage by three local actors, Tyler Rainer, Zarah Shejule, and Jakob Winter. Following the reading, she will lead a short discussion and ask for audience feedback.

About the Actors:

Adrienne Dawes (reading the role of VERA/STAGE DIRECTIONS) is a mixed-race AfroLatina playwright originally from Austin, TX. Her plays include Casta, Denim Doves, Am I White, Teen Dad, and more. She received her bachelor’s degree from Sarah Lawrence College and studied sketch and improv with Second City in Chicago, IL. Adrienne has been a Literary Fellow in the Tulsa Artist Fellowship (George Kaiser Family Foundation), a NALAC Fund for the Arts grantee, a selected playwright in the 2018 Fornés Playwriting Workshop with Migdalia Cruz (University of Notre Dame), a recipient of the Stanley and Evelyn Lipkin Prize for Playwriting (Sarah Lawrence College), and received a scholarship to attend the 2018 Kenyon Review Playwrights Conference, directed by Wendy MacLeod. Her play Am I White won the David Mark Cohen New Play Award from the Austin Critics Table and an award for Outstanding Original Script by the B. Iden Payne Awards. She has a been a finalist for the O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, Bay Area Playwrights Festival, B Street Theatre New Comedies Festival, and a semifinalist for the Princess Grace Award. Her work has been published by Vintage Books, Playscripts, Heartland Plays, Heuer Publishing, and Applause Theatre & Cinema Books. Her full-length work has been produced at Salvage Vanguard Theater (Austin, TX), Sacred Fools (Los Angeles, CA), and American Theatre Company (Tulsa, OK). Adrienne’s work has also been developed at TheatreSquared, Teatro Milagro, National Black Theatre, National Winter Playwrights Retreat (HBMG Foundation), North Carolina Black Repertory, English Theatre Berlin, Live Girls! Theater, and Echo Theatre (Dallas, TX). Adrienne is a member of the Dramatists Guild, ScriptWorks, and a company member of Salvage Vanguard Theater.

Jakob Winter (reading the role of HAIRY SPEYER) is an incoming Senior Acting Major at Ball State University. He has previously been involved in several Ball State Theatre and Dance productions. He has also just finished his second season performing at Richmond Shakespeare Festival. Jakob is excited to start this new process and collaborate on a brand new script.

Zarah Shebuje (reading the role of SHERRI SPEYER) originally hails from the wee village of Warrington, IN. She works as a Marketing Manager for an elevator interior company in Middletown. Zarah has appeared in many productions, some of her favorites being “Florinda” in Into the Woods, “Vivienne” in Legally Blond, “Kathleen” in All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarden, “Aida” in Over the River and Through the Woods, “Trish Mahoney” in The 25TH Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, and “Miss Lana Sherwood” in It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play.

Tyler Rainer (reading the role of RYSHI SPEYER) is an actor/playwright originally from New Castle, Indiana and a recent graduate of Ball State University’s BFA Acting program. He most recently wrote, produced, and directed a one-person show titled Some Kubrick Shit as his senior capstone, a sci-fi project that he hopes to continue expanding. He was also recently seen in the Richmond Shakespeare Festival’s 2019 season where he played “Trinculo” in The Tempest. Other favorite credits include Veronica’s Room (Conrad), Twilight Los Angeles 1992 (Paul Parker), and Macbeth (Donalbain).

Muncie Arts and Culture Council is a nonprofit organization and the designated Arts partner for the City of Muncie. PlySpace is a program of the MACC in partnership with the City of Muncie, Ball State University School of Art and Sustainable Muncie Corporation. PlySpace is supported in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts

Muncie Memories project invites the public to share their favorite places on the Muncie map, c/o the Muncie Map Company. The map will be on view at the exhibition.

The Muncie Arts and Culture Council invites the public to the exhibition event for the Muncie Memories collaborative storytelling project on First Thursday, August 1st, from 5-8 PM in the PlySpace Gallery (608 E. Main St, Muncie). Muncie Memories, led by PlySpace Resident Fellow Meredith Kooi, is a project that encourages residents of Muncie to share their experiences, memories, and stories of the place they call home. Light refreshments will be served, and the public is invited to attend.

Over a 10-week period, the Muncie Memories project engaged more than 100 participants from the community who shared their stories, feelings, thoughts, and memories about Muncie with Kooi and a team of Ball State University School of Art interns: Ellie Phan, Jenna Mesker, Kai Cohen, Katie Strader, and Kitty Taylor. The exhibition will feature highlights from the project, including drawings by Cornerstone Summer Arts Camp students, interviews with Upward Bound of Ivy Tech students, archival material, photographs, audio and video documentation, interactive digital features, and more. Much of the material for the exhibition was sourced through the Muncie Memories Interview Booth, a place for discussion and sharing, that was set up at various public events throughout July including the Minnetrista Farmers Market, the Muncie Makers Market, the Cardinal Greenways Bike Fest, Be Here Now, the Muncie Three Trails Music Series, the Delaware County Fair, and the Muncie Delaware County Senior Center, among other locations.  

The First Thursday opening reception is part of Muncie Arts & Culture Council’s 10 for 10 MACCtivity series of events highlighted throughout 2019 in recognition of the organizations first decade of celebrating and support arts and culture in Muncie. PlySpace Gallery will hold additional viewing hours for the exhibition on Friday, August 2nd from 3-7 PM, Saturday August 3rd from 2-6 PM and Sunday August 4th from 2-6 PM. Parking for the exhibition is available in the lot next to PlySpace at Main St. and Monroe St., or in the Madjax parking lot at Jackson St. and Monroe St.

In addition to the exhibition, Kooi will also speak about her work and process in a public artist lecture at the Ball State University Arts and Journalism Building (Room 225) on August 5th, from 6-7PM. As an artist who focuses on the importance of place, Kooi visited with numerous Muncie residents, organizations, and businesses, expressing her desire to connect with the community of Muncie. In order to explore the history of Muncie, Kooi led the intern team on fieldwalks and research visits at a variety of Muncie locations throughout the summer. Each visit was captured through photographs and narrative articles on the Muncie Memories website (munciememories.tumblr.com), where it will remain as a living archive of Muncie. Though this exhibition marks the end of Kooi’s residency experience, she hopes to continue the project through the Muncie Memories website and other virtual platforms. Participation in the project is still encouraged by contacting her at munciememories@gmail.com.

Kooi, a Chicago native hailing from Atlanta, is an artist, curator, critic, researcher, and educator working across mediums who is driven by curiosity and an eagerness to understand the places where she finds herself. Using performance, radio, audio, installation, drawing, writing, the web, and social practice, Kooi digs into the materials of history to uncover narratives of place. She was awarded Creative Loafing’s inaugural Influencer in Art & Culture award (2018), was a recipient of the 2014-2015 Atlanta Office of Cultural Affairs Emerging Artist Award, and was a WonderRoot Hughley Fellow (2017-18). She has held residencies at Wave Farm (Acra, NY; 2016), Elsewhere (Greensboro, NC; 2015), and Hambidge (Rabun Gap, GA; 2014), among others. She is the founder and director of the curatorial platform ALTERED MEANS, the former director of development at The Bakery Atlanta (2018), and was the editor and assistant director of Radius (2011-2017), an experimental radio broadcast platform in Chicago. Kooi received her MA in Visual and Critical Studies from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and is currently a PhD candidate in The Graduate Institute of the Liberal Arts at Emory University. 

More information about Kooi and other PlySpace Summer Term events can be found on the PlySpace website at www.PlySpace.org/events and the PlySpace Facebook page. Questions or comments about the PlySpace Residency program, events, and community collaborations can be directed to the Residency Coordinator, Erin Williams, at hello@plyspace.org. Learn more about Muncie Arts & Culture Council at www.munciearts.org.

PlySpace is a program of Muncie Arts and Culture Council in partnership with the City of Muncie, Ball State University School of Art, and Sustainable Muncie Corporation. PlySpace is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts. 

Graven Image (2018)

Join the Muncie Arts and Culture Council for a 2 part series of events celebrating Public Art.

Part 1: Public Art Film Screening
Saturday, August 10, from 6-9 PM
Curated by PlySpace Resident Masha Vlasova
This screening focuses on 4 video and film works about sculptural markings in urban spaces, memory, and place. Screening time: 50min, followed by group discussion and dialogue. This event is free and open to the public, and no expertise or previous experience with public art is necessary! The screening will be an informal and fun event with light refreshments, though may not be engageing for children under 14.

Films:
Running Fence
Albert Maysles, David Maysles, Charlotte Zwerin, 1978, 57 min
We will show a 10 min excerpt of this film, with the opportunity to watch entire documentary after the main program is over.
The film follows the artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude as they work with the community to build a 24 mile fence of white fabric over the hills of California disappearing into the Pacific. The excerpt depicts the struggle between the artists and the state bureaucracy in the process of approving and erecting the fence, giving a glimpse into the multi-layered and complicated process of approving and installing a large-scale public art work.

Turbo Sculpture
Aleksandra Domanovic, 2010-2013, 19:44 min.
Turbo Sculpture is a video essay which examines the emergence of a new kind of public art in the former-Yougoslav republics as a response to post-war search for a new national identity. Domanovic’s work offers an international perspective on monumentality and public art.

Buried and Breaking Away
Bill Morrison, 2018, 10 min
Breaking Away was a 1979 film by Peter Yates, filmed in Bloomington, Indiana. In 2014, Bill Morrison buried the reel of the damaged 35mm film print in Bloomington for two months, allowing the physical and chemical elements to distort and alter the emulsion. Upon unearthing, cleaning and screening the print, an abstracted moving image revealed itself. Bill Morrison’s Buried and Breaking Away is a meditation on the physical effects of Indiana’s geology and place on one of its most beloved visual and cultural representation.

Graven Image
Sierra Pettengill, 2018, 10 min
Graven Image tracks the history of the largest Confederate monument, Georgia’s Stone Mountain, exclusively through archival footage.

This event is visible on Facebook at:
https://www.facebook.com/events/394315724437377/

Don't miss Part 2 of the Public Art Series, the Public Art Panel Discussion on Thursday, August 15th, from 6-8 pm at Minnetrista.

Muncie Arts and Culture Council is a nonprofit organization and the designated Arts partner for the City of Muncie. PlySpace is a program of the MACC in partnership with the City of Muncie, Ball State University School of Art and Sustainable Muncie Corporation. PlySpace is supported in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Join us for a Public Art Panel Discussion // Thursday, August 15th, from 6-8 PM at Minnetrista (Indiana Room) // Moderated by Les Smith, incoming Board President for Community Enhancement Projects. This event is free and open to the public.

This panel discussion is the second event in a two-part series on public art hosted by Muncie Arts and Culture Council and PlySpace resident artist Masha Vlasova. The event brings together a range of professional touch points with public art and welcomes Muncie residents and local arts advocates into a broad and informative conversation about its various forms, their impact on quality of place, and mechanisms for commissioning and stewarding works of art for the public.

About the panelists:

Les Smith (Moderator) has been a licensed landscape architect since 1982. He recently completed a 35-year career as a faculty member in the Department of Landscape Architecture at Ball State University. Les is currently the Vice President for Community Enhancement Projects, Inc. (CEP). CEP is a very active Muncie beautification organization. CEP is also responsible for the design, development, funding and maintenance of many familiar community parks and recreation facilities (e.g. Riverbend Park; The White River Greenway Trails; Canan Commons Stage and Park; the Bicentennial Pavilion/Overlook Park, etc.).

Masha Vlasova (Panelist and PlySpace Resident) is an interdisciplinary artist and educator. She holds an MFA from Yale School of Art and a BFA from the Cooper Union.  She’s a recipient of the Fulbright Fellowship in Filmmaking, Alice Kimball Fellowship, and the JUNCTURE Art and Human Rights Fellowship at Yale Law School. Her photographs, sculptures, and films have been exhibited and screened nationally and internationally at Leeds College of Art and at Braziers Mini Indi Film Festival in the UK, Aspekte Galerie in Germany, Smack Mellon, Anthology Archives, Abrons Arts Center, and the Border Project Gallery in New York City, Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts at Harvard University among others. She has presented on her work at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, the Cooper Union, Davison College, and Ludwig-Maximilians Unversitat Munchen (University of Munich). Her curatorial project “Women Filmmakers at the Intersection of Documentary, Video Art, and Avant Garde,” premiered at Indiana University Cinema at Indiana University at Bloomington the Fall of 2018. This Fall she will start as an Assistant Professor of Lens-based and Digital Art practices at Wofford College.

Lauren M. Pacheco (Panelist) is an arts and culture practitioner with more than 15 years of professional experience in arts administration, curation and project management. Her experience is grounded in social practice and public engagement. Pacheco is co-founder of the Chicago Urban Art Society and the Chicago Lowrider Festival. In 2011, she developed and curated the award-winning public art initiative, Art in Public Places along the 16th street viaduct in Chicago’s Pilsen community. In September 2017, Lauren won a public art grant from the Knight Foundation and will transform outdoor vacant space in Gary, Indiana into a walkable, art-park. She has received grant funding from the Knight Foundation, Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Legacy Foundation, Chicago Community Trust and the National Association for Latinos Arts and Cultures. Lauren holds degrees from Northwestern University, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and the University of Illinois at Chicago. 

Richard McCoy (Panelist) is the founding director of the Landmark Columbus Foundation, a non-profit organization that cares for the design heritage of Columbus, Indiana and inspires communities to invest in architecture, art, and design to improve people’s lives and make cities better places to live. Landmark Columbus Foundation is best known for its program Exhibit Columbus which alternates between symposium and exhibition years. McCoy is an experienced cultural leader who creates unique solutions to complex cultural heritage challenges, curates projects in public spaces, and has worked for major U.S. museums while teaching in universities. He has served on and volunteered for boards and committees of numerous cultural organizations. A former Fulbright Scholar to Spain, McCoy holds a master's degree from New York University and a bachelor's degree from Indiana University. He lives in Indianapolis with his wife and family.

Don't miss this exciting opportunity to learn about public art from distinguished professionals in the field.

Muncie Arts and Culture Council is a nonprofit organization and the designated Arts partner for the City of Muncie. PlySpace is a program of the MACC in partnership with the City of Muncie, Ball State University School of Art and Sustainable Muncie Corp. PlySpace is supported in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Field Guides by Dana Lynn Harper

Field Guides /// An Exhibition by PlySpace Fellow Dana Lynn Harper /// Opening during the Downtown Muncie First Thursday gallery walk, November 7, from 5-8 PM at the PlySpace Gallery /// 608 E. Main St, Muncie

‘Field Guides’ is a playful and boisterous exhibition exploring the artist’s belief in spirit guides. Spirit guides are believed to be supernatural beings that provide support, guidance and love when we need it most. Harper says, "this abstract idea is translated into layers of texture, pattern and color. Utilizing textiles, paper and plastics; aspects of personality, aura, consciousness and spirit are made visible. Each being borrows the form of celebratory objects, like piñatas, paper lanterns and pom poms. These playful forms are combined with ornamentation inspired by the growth of plants and flowers. Materials are dismantled and reconfigured into layers of a new imagined being, a soul without the body. Through this interpretation, the immaterial is made tangible."

Dana Harper holds a BFA from The Ohio State University in 2009. She was the recipient of The Bunton Waller Fellowship from Penn State University, where Harper received her MFA in 2013. Harper was awarded an ArtPrize Seed Grant, ArtFile Emerging Artist Grant and a Ringholz Foundation Award. In addition, Harper was awarded an NEA studio grant to attend an artist residency at Women’s Studio Workshop. She has also been an artist in residence at Sculpture Space, Teton Art Lab, ArtSpace Raleigh, ARC Chattanooga, Kutztown University, Bunker Projects and Second Sight Studio. She has had solo exhibitions at Front/Space Gallery & Museum, Manifest Gallery and ROY G BIV among many others. Harper is currently living and working in Columbus, OH.

You can also learn about Dana's work at the Dana Lynn Harper Artist Lecture at Ball State University at Ball State University as part of the Visiting Artists and Designers Lecture Series /// October 29th, from 6-7 PM, in the Arts & Journalism Building, RM 225 /// This lecture is open to the public!

Muncie Arts and Culture Council is a nonprofit organization and the designated Arts partner for the City of Muncie. PlySpace is a program of the MACC in partnership with the City of Muncie, Ball State University School of Art and Sustainable Muncie. PlySpace is supported in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts

PlySpace Resident Co-Fellows Sydney Pursel and Sarah Trad will be joined by guest artist Toby Kaufmann-Buhler for a special PlySpace panel discussion about the intersections of personal family heritage and art practice. Tania Said, the Director of Education for the David Owsley Museum of Art Ball State University, will moderate the discussion held on Thursday, November 14th from 6-8 PM at Ball State University /// Arts & Journalism Building, room 225.

This conversation will ask each of the three interdisciplinary artists to reflect on their use of personal and cultural heritage in their artistic practice. Each panelist has a unique method for working within the sometimes sticky practice of uniting art, performance, and installation with personal family heritage, genealogy, or culture. The artists will share a short presentation about their work, followed by a discussion of how they incorporate personal, family, and cultural heritage successfully into their practice.

About the artists:

Sydney Jane Brooke Campbell Maybrier Pursel is an interdisciplinary artist specializing in interactive, socially engaged, and performance arts. Through art she explores personal identity drawing from her Indigenous and Irish Catholic roots. Some of Pursel's projects are used to educate others about food politics, assimilation, language loss, appropriation, and history in addition to projects amongst her own community focusing on language acquisition, culture and art. Her work has been shown at public parks, universities, galleries, and alternative spaces in across the U.S. and Canada. Pursel received her MFA in Expanded Media at the University of Kansas and her BFA in Painting from the University of Missouri. She was the first recipient of the Ucross Fellowship for Native American Visual Artists, received a Rocket Grant through the Charlotte Street Foundation and the Spencer Museum of Art, was selected for the Indigenous Arts Initiative Residency program through the Kansas Creative Arts Industries Commission and the University of Kansas, was awarded a BeWildReWild Community Art Grant through the Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation. Pursel is an enrolled member of the Ioway Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska.

Sarah Trad is a video artist and curator who explores the relationship between subjective and objective emotionality, navigating daily life and relationships while faced with mental illness and breaking down stereotypes of gender and narrative. Her work also highlights how mental illness and coming from marginalized backgrounds intersects with internal emotional worlds. The living embodiment of the correlation between chronic depression and binge-watching practices, her work appropriates and manipulates found footage from movies, music videos and television. Trad’s work uses recognizable narrative structures to be viewed in and outside the academy of art, as well as comment on the individual’s relationship to pop culture. Sarah has participated in other residencies, such as the 77Art Residency in Rutland, Vermont and is a recipient of the Carol N. Schmuckler Award for Outstanding Achievement in Film. Sarah’s work has been shown at The Warehouse Gallery (Syracuse, NY), Kitchen Table Gallery (Philadelphia, PA), Gravy Studio and Gallery (Philadelphia, PA) and the Everson Museum of Art (Syracuse, NY). She is currently a part of the Philadelphia artist-run gallery, Little Berlin.

Toby Kaufmann-Buhler (based in Lafayette, Indiana) explores history, memory, identity and sensory perception in relation to his family and himself, within individual lives and across broad sweeps of history and culture. Kaufmann-Buhler interprets the evidence of the lives he explores as signals that pass through their respective cultures and time periods; these signals are continuously transformed as they reach our current perception of them. This work amounts to a type of surveillance of these signals, and an examination of the connections between them and himself as they manifest in the work. This work takes form in video, film, found/composed sound, text, installation, performance and interactive media. Kaufmann-Buhler was a recipient of the Individual Artist Program grant from the Indiana Arts Commission in 2018-2019, and in 2020 he will be an artist in residence at MASS MoCA. He has a BA in Fine Arts from the University of South Florida and an MA from the Royal College of Art.

Tania Said is the director of education for the David Owsley Museum of Art at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana. She is also involved in various art, business, and community organizations in Muncie, Indiana and national professional endeavors. On lucky Friday, September 13, 2019 she was bestowed the Mayor’s Arts Educator Award.

Image credit: Toby Kaufmann-Buhler /// Moon Confusion: brightest beams (video still)

Muncie Arts and Culture Council is a nonprofit organization and the designated Arts partner for the City of Muncie. PlySpace is a program of the MACC in partnership with the City of Muncie, Ball State University School of Art and Sustainable Muncie. PlySpace is supported in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

PlySpace and the Muncie Arts and Culture Council invite you to an artist lecture by PlySpace Spring 2020 Fellows, Valerie Skakun and P. Spadine, on Tuesday, February 18th, from 5-6 PM in AJ225.

Skakun and Spadine have been working as collaborative partners since 2017. The philosophy of Skakun’s recent body of work began the moment she was struck by a car while on her bike and left unable to walk for a year. She has explored sculptures as objects of ritual and labor, ranging from time-based devotions to endurance trainings in order to transform mental and physical states of being. She received an MFA from Hunter College in 2019, and a BFA from The Cooper Union in 2009. Spadine has worked under Ashcan Orchestra, a pen name and performance ensemble as a vehicle for his audio/visual experiments since 2007. Informed by a sense of wonder, his work has sought to emulate, celebrate, and demystify the laws that govern the physical universe. Together they work in the realm in which the physicality of sculpture and sound overlap. Skakun and Spadine seek to explore the dual nature of labor and play, as a way to engage the world of wonder within the viewer through a physical catalyst.

While in residence at PlySpace, Skakun & Spadine will be researching stronger materials and building prototypes of new working components for their series of modular sound sculptures, which refer to an “organ” as both body part and musical instrument and require physical use of the entire body to play. They will be working with Assistant Professor Rachel Cohn and her 4d students at Ball State University to design and build pump organs which generate sound through bodily motions. The collaboration will culminate in a public performance featuring the ensemble of sound sculptures on April 2nd, first Thursday, at Madjax.

PlySpace is a program of Muncie Arts and Culture Council in partnership with the City of Muncie, Ball State School of Art and Sustainable Muncie Corporation. PlySpace is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.

PlySpace, an immersive Artist-in-Residence program of the Muncie Arts and Culture Council, is hosting four community panel discussion webinars as part of the series: The Creative Use of Difference. Each panel will feature artists, both local and national, who are using their respected art forms to creatively bring awareness to societal issues such as racial injustices, sexism, and more. These hour-long discussions will be in collaboration with Atlanta-based artist Indya Childs as she develops a new work, entitled "Peace, Love, Dance" with Ball State University Department of Theatre and Dance students. The semester-long project will culminate in a dance film, choreographed by Indya and the students in response to the Creative Use of Difference series. The film will be completed and will premiere later this spring, details forthcoming. All discussions in the Creative Use of Difference series will be held online, are free, and open to the public. Registration is required to access each discussion webinar. Learn more about the panelists and project at Plyspace.org/pld

The Art of Politics
February 11th, 2021 from 6-7 PM (online)
Featuring panelists Ted Williams III and Shantanu Suman
The Art of Politics is a discussion with artists on how they are using their artistic voices to bring awareness to politics, social change, and more. 

The Black Woman Creating
February 18th, 2021 from 6-7 PM (online)
Featuring guest panelists Charmaine Minniefield and Dee Dee Batteast
The Black Woman Creating is a discussion with Black female-identifying artists whose work is influenced by Black feminism, social justice, and more. 

Women Shifting the Space
February 25th, 2021 from 6-7 PM (online)
Featuring guest panelists Ana de Brea and Lauren Pacheco
Women Shifting the Space is a discussion with female-identifying artists on how they are shifting the space of patriarchy and creating a space for female visibility and leadership. 

The “New” Policies of Dance
March 4th, 2021 from 6-7 PM (online)
Featuring guest panelists Felecia Thomas and Beverly Bautista
The “New” Policies of Dance is a discussion with dance educators that will highlight the new policies of inclusion, diversity, and equality in the dance world adopted by dance schools, institutions, etc in the wake of 2020. 

Registration is required for each event. Please see the website for details.