Visual Culture Lecture Series 2022–2023
All events are free and open to the public
Tuesday January 24, 2023 | MATTHEW KOSHMRL | Filmmaking | 6pm in Solon Campus Center 120 & on zoom
Matthew is an Emmy nominated filmmaker, cinematographer, and film festival director based in northern Minnesota. He received an MFA in film production from the University of Texas at Austin. In 2016, he received the Antarctic Service Medal from the United States congress for his work with the National Science Foundation documenting a paleontological expedition to the Antarctic Peninsula.
Matthew personally focuses on cinema vérité documentary films that explore the evolution of tradition, individual and national identity, and unseen processes. His work has played at The Jeonju International Film Festival, International Documentary Festival Amsterdam, Full Frame, DocumentaMadrid, and True/False Film Festival.
He is a strong proponent of film and media education and has been a faculty member at St. Edward's University, Austin Community College, the Austin School of Film, and is the director of community film education programs in Duluth, Chisholm, and Grand Rapids. Since 2017, he has worked with the US State Department as a peer mentor to fellows participating in the Mandela Washington Fellowship, which provides young leaders from Sub-Saharan Africa with the opportunity to hone their skills in the USA. In 2018, he organized and taught a month-long film workshop in Harare, Zimbabwe through a State Department Reciprocal Exchange Grant.
Tuesday March 14, 2023 | KEVIN SNIPES | Ceramics | 6pm in Solon Campus Center 120 and on zoom
Kevin Snipes was born in Philadelphia, but grew up mostly in Cleveland, Ohio. He received a B.F.A. in ceramics and drawing from the Cleveland Institute of Art in 1994. After leaving grad school at the University of Florida in 2003 Kevin has led a seemingly nomadic artistic life, constantly making making no matter where he is.
Kevin has participated in several artist residency programs, including the Clay Studio, in Philadelphia and Watershed Center for Ceramic Arts, in New Castle, Maine and received a Taunt Fellowship from the Archie Bray Foundation in Montana 2008. Exhibiting both nationally and internationally, including a recent solo exhibition at the Society of Arts and Craft, Boston; Akar, Iowa City and Duane Reed Gallery in St. Louis. Kevin has exhibited as far away as Jingdezhen, China. Kevin combines his love of constructing unconventional pottery with an obsessive need to draw on everything that he produces, creating a uniquely dynamic body of work. He currently resides in Pittsburgh, PA.
Tuesday March 21, 2023 | JACQUELINE LOMBARD | Art History | 6pm in Solon Campus Center 120 and on zoom
Jacqueline Lombard joined the department in 2015 after completing her BA in Studio Art at Carleton College, where she also graduated with a minor in Medieval and Renaissance Studies. She specializes in medieval art history, with a particular focus on the history of art objects as products or conduits of cross-cultural exchange between the empires and kingdoms of Medieval Europe, the Middle East, and Northern and Eastern Africa. Her research explores pre-modern conceptions of ethnic and racial identity and seeks to understand how medieval peoples articulated and understood their own identities and spaces through artistic production.
Tuesday April 4, 2023 | ZEINAB SAAB &TRAVIS HAGGERTY | Annual Student Exhibition (ASE) Jurors | 6pm in Solon Campus Center 120 and on zoom
Travis is a designer specialising in motion design. He’s been in the industry for just over 8 years. Within that time he’s gone from a jr. designer, to sr. motion designer, and now free-lances with a variety of clients big and small. From branding a local hummus company, to working with Rokr and Version1 making E-sport content, all the way to working with massive tech companies paving the way for a brighter future. He prides himself on the unique view and style that he can bring to clients, as well as being able to assist in any step of the process; from writing, strategy, and of course design.
Originally from Dearborn, Michigan, Zeinab Saab is currently based in Portland, Oregon. Their current work focuses on exploration of the self through color theory and the grid. They received her BFA in printmaking from Bowling Green State University from Bowling Green, OH in 2015 and completed their MFA in Printmaking at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, IL in 2019. Their work has been exhibited nationally and internationally in San Francisco, St. Louis, Detroit, New York, California, Dubai, New Mexico, and Hawaii among other places, and is held in several permanent collections, including Emory University, The Bainbridge Museum of Art, Zayed University in Dubai, UAE, the Arab American National Museum, and the University of Iowa’s Special Collections Library.
Tuesday April 18, 2023 | ULLA-KARIN WARBERG | Art Education | 6pm in Solon Campus Center 120 and on zoom
VCLS guest Ula-Karin Warberg
April 18 6pm
Ulla-Karin Warberg is a curator at the Nordiska Museet in Stockholm and a lecturer at Uppsala University in Sweden. She is a lecturer at the University of Uppsala, Campus Gotland and Linkoping University, a board member at the Swedish Research Institute in Istanbul's Friends Association and at the Stockholm Oriental Carpet Society Pazyryk. She has curated numerous exhibitions and has a distinguished publication record. She has presented gallery lectures to Art and Design students several times as part of the UMD Nordic Art and Design Study Abroad trip. In April, she will present her research on Swedish Folk Art traditions from the permanent collection of Nordiska Museet as part of the UMD VCLS and the Nordic Center in Duluth on April 19 from 1:30-3pm.
Tulips and Roses – an exposé about Swedish Folk Art and its pattern traditions put into a social, socio-economic and topographic context.
Ulla-Karin Warberg will use the folk art patterns as a starting point to show how they were adapted and used in different parts of Sweden. This will give a glimpse of how complex the vernacular art is due to economical and geographical circumstances. The objects she will cover everything from older paintings/watercolors showing interiors of farmsteads, painted furniture, textiles, betrothal gifts, paintings (bonader) and minor handicraft.
Tuesday October 18, 2022 | JUNKO OGAWA | Drawing | 6pm in Solon Campus Ctr 120 and on zoom
Junko Ogawa was born and raised in Tokyo, Japan. She received her PhD in Biological and Environmental Science at Saitama University, was a postdoctoral fellow at the Sanford Burnham Prebys research institute and then at the Salk Institute both in La Jolla California. She rose through the ranks at the Salk Institute where she worked on glioblastoma brain cancers and eventually becoming a Senior Research Scientist working on squid and cuttlefish reflectin proteins, the SARS COV2 coronaviruses and microscopy technology.
Tuesday October 25, 2022 | Timothy Goodman | Graphic Design | 6pm on Zoom
Timothy Goodman's art and words have populated walls, buildings, packaging, cars, people, shoes, clothing, book jackets, magazine covers and galleries all over the world. His clients include Google, Samsung, Uniqlo, Target, MoMA, Airbnb, Netflix, The New Yorker and The New York Times. He has received awards from most major design & illustration publications. He’s the co-creator of several personal projects including the blog and book 40 Days of Dating (whose film rights were optioned to Warner Bros), 12 Kinds of Kindness, Build Kindness Not Walls, People of Craft, and Friends With Secrets. He is also the author of Sharpie Art Workshop. Recently, he launched a global collection of clothing with Uniqlo, and products with West Elm. He teaches at SVA in NYC and talks about his feelings on Instagram.
Tuesday November 15, 2022 | ELIZABETH HUMPHREY | Tweed Museum of Art | 6pm on Zoom live-streamed in Solon Campus Center 120
I use material culture and objects to study acculturation, representation, and North America's diverse histories. As an artist and scholar, my experiences contribute to a greater understanding of and appreciation for art, craftsmanship, and design. My research often focuses on North America in a globalized context, specifically non-Euro American art histories and material culture.
I received my B.A. in Art History and Visual Arts from Bowdoin College and my M.A. in American Material Culture from the Winterthur Program at the University of Delaware. Professional experiences include the Bowdoin College Museum of Art, the National Museum of African American History and Culture, the Hirshhorn Museum, and the Winterthur Museum. I am currently a Ph.D. student in Art History at the University of Delaware.