“Approaching Water,” an exhibition of artists who engage with water as substance or social condition continues through April 29 at Constellation Studios.
The exhibition was co-curated by the Art, Data and Environment/s (ADE/s) team at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, which includes Assistant Professor of Art History Katie Anania; Dorota Biczel and Jessica Santone, post-doctoral scholars in art history and ecology; as well as Professor Emerita of Printmaking Karen Kunc. Cooper Stiglitz, a graduate student in art history who is also an ADE/s team member, is the curatorial assistant for the show.
Water’s life-sustaining work requires multiple languages to describe. We may think about water in terms of the systems that distribute it—the lakes, rivers, vessels and other infrastructures that direct it to humans or other-than-humans. As a constitutive element of most organisms, it is intimately linked with embodiment and survival. For many creatures, it is home.
The works featured in this exhibition suggest new ways to narrate, interpret or discuss water and to recover lost histories of its use. “Approaching Water” shows the depth and breadth of artistic practices that engage with water as a key substance vested with multiple social, political, economic and cultural interests. Using a variety of media, from graphic novels to design interventions to soundworks, the works ask viewers to think expansively about water and its social construction.
“Approaching Water” includes works by Luz Maria Bedoya, Vaughn Bell, Jess Benjamin, Alex Braidwood, Nancy Friedemann-Sanchez, Regan Golden, Joan Hall, Susan Knight, Sal Lindquist, Colin Matthes, Mystic Multiples, Florence Neal, Musuk Nolte, Alison Rowe, Geo Rutherford and Tia-Simone Gardner.
In collaboration with Karen Kunc of Constellation Studios, this exhibition is organized by ADE/s (https://go.unl.edu/ade-s), a group dedicated to the critical and creative study of data representation based at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. The curatorial team is funded by the National Science Foundation and engage in collaborative research to decenter Eurocentric data visualization principles. “Approaching Water” coincides with the second Conference on Biological Stoichiometry (CoBS), a scientific conference to be held at UNL in March 2023.
Constellation Studios is located at 2055 O St. in Lincoln. Gallery hours are Saturdays, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. or by appointment. Admission is free and open to the public. For more information or to schedule a viewing appointment, contact karen@constellation-studios.net or kanania2@unl.edu.
A First Friday Art Walk reception will be April 7 from 6-8 p.m. And a closing reception will be held Saturday, April 29 from 6-8 p.m.