Symposium with the TCNJ Art Department

Anita Allyn

-- Chair of the Art and Art History Department
--Works in video, photo, installations, time based art, animations.
--Themes- Political and social commentary of identifying herself in social issues in the world. but takes an interesting standpoint from looking at a view that most artists do not take. And in identifying this she is creating a new dialog to be further explored.
-- "Ivory Tower Mountain" was probably one of the most intreating. The composite of the mountain ranges and the use of both inside and outside space; the photography of the on lookers (who you later learned were spectators of lynchings) had this eerie dead stair on their faces. It is something that evokes conversation and is something that I thought I would have never come into contact with. It's an interesting view I don't think I have ever encountered.
-- Installation art is intriguing to me and learning more about her pieces "News from Nowhere" and "I Heart Post democracy"drawing from events like occupy Wall Street and other political happenings using pictures of public faces that are from the past.



Elizabeth Mackie
--Associate Professor of Art and Program Coordinator for Graphic Design
-- Fabric and sculpture
-- The social taboo of femininity, clothing, and high fashion, referencing dolls and the fashion of her mother.
--"A String of Stories" was a compiling of semi transparent fabric all comprised from many different people, all about women.  After the dress is compiled and to read the story you have to go up the skirt, this creates a strange tension because of the social accepting views of looking up a skirt.
-- The wedding dress was so meticulously crafted and the whole story behind the factory and their life after marriage. The whole ascetics of the piece the projection of the farm animals on the dress and the audio of the animals and 40's and 50's wedding music.
--I loved her photographs of the skirts and it had a beautiful floral and feminine look to them. The lighting. They are beautifully composed and have great lighting
-- Over all I liked her work and I would like to see more and further see her ideas.

Liselot Van Der Heijden
--Video and installation art focusing on visual gaze.
-- studying the awkward relation between the tourists and the Navaho Indians of Monument Valley.
--Combination of the Movie the Searchers from the 1850's, the documentation of the movie which took place in the 1950's, and her own footage from approximately 15 years ago.  Her work challenges the visual perspective and making the viewer become part of the piece.
- How the past informs today and the future.
-- I like the view of the relationship of how people react to the space and how tourists interact with the Native American and how there is a sad relationship is and the social problems that happened to the native people.
-- Its also interesting how she is also originally from Europe, so she had to do research on the relationship.

Kenneth Kapolwitz
--He is inspired by the universe
--The surreal and fantastical
--"we are the universe become of itself"
                --because we are all made of the same material