We have had an amazing group of people join us in June and July and we are very excited to announce our August participants for the Lunder Institute for American Art Summer Think Tank. In July, we welcomed a cohort of performance artists, celebrated Ossorio Fellow, Paula Wilson, and a group of visual artists, museum leaders, and art organization leaders.

Our August Chef in Residence is Dave Mallari who will host and curate supper clubs for our Summer Think Tank participants during the month.

In the first week of August, we welcome conversations around museum programs and performance.  Ed Patuto, Director of Audience Engagement at the Broad will be joined by Limor Tomer, Live Arts General Manager at The Met, Performing Arts Curator, Administrator & Fundraiser.

The following week, we’ll host scholar, curator and critic, Tiffany Barber along with artist, Kandis Wiliams. They will engage in discussion around the Black aesthetic and feminism.  In our final week of the Summer Think Tank, we will be joined by curators and scholars, Bridget Cooks and Robert Cozzolino who will ground us in their thoughts, theories and work to address centering Blackness and the Black experience in American art.

Since we started in early June, the Summer Think Tank has fostered insightful and amazing discussions around creative practice and American identities and experiences. We look forward to concluding our program with grounding conversations about the future landscape of American Art.

Though the conversations are not open to the general public, each will be recorded and preserved in an oral history archive for researchers to access.

We have had an amazing group of people join us in June and we are very excited to announce our July participants for the Lunder Institute for American Art Summer Think Tank. In July, we welcome a cohort of six performance artists, Ayana Evans, Tsedaye Makonnen, Dominique Duroseau, Nyugen Smith, M. Lamar, and Eleanor Kipping, who with the guidance, advisement, and support of pioneer and influential artist, Lorraine O’Grady, and her trusted colleague and collaborator, artist, Sur Rodney, will workshop and incubate a performance piece, using one of O’Grady’s never published or shared scores. This is a very special moment for the Lunder Institute and we can’t wait to be a part of what’s developed and workshopped by the performance artists at GB+S and to see what directions it will lead to beyond the summer think tank. This amazing group is a product of a collaboration with O’Grady and Rodney, and we are grateful to them both.

In July, we also welcome back current Ossorio Fellow, Paula Wilson, who is currently featured in Ashley Bryan / Paula Wilson: Take the World into Your Arms,  a two person exhibition at the The Joan Dignam Schmaltz Gallery of Art at the Paul J. Schupf Art Center, Downtown Waterville through the end of July. Paula will be part of a conversation with Daniel Minter and Virgil Ortiz facilitated by Colby Museum Director Jackie Terassa during the 2023 Summer Luncheon hosted by the museum. Paula Wilson will also present a talk and walk-through of her exhibition on July 7th. (Space is limited, and RSVP is required.)

We are also pleased to co-host First Fridays at Green Block & Studios this Friday July 7 where all are welcome to join Lunder Institute for American Art summer fellows and senior fellow Paula Wilson for a party featuring Central Maine’s premiere DJs.

Later in the month we have Kelli Morgan and Xaviera Simmons in conversation, as well as Joy Bivins, Micha Brodnax, and the two founders of the Black Lunch Table, Jina Valentine and Heather Hart.

Our July Chef in Residence for July is chef Jordan Benissan, who will be hosting supper clubs throughout the month. Learn more about our chefs in residence program here.

Artist Dell Marie Hamilton will also join us this month, and we are also pleased to announce the addition of Diedrick Brackens, TK Smith, and Abram Jackson, who will join us for a conversation at the end of the month.

Many voices, many insights and many contributions make up the Lunder Institute for American Art Summer, Think Tank and we are so pleased, proud and excited to share with you.

For more information and to learn more click here.

The Lunder Institute for American Art is pleased to announce the first round of participants in our Summer Think Tank: ______ American 2023.

Over ten weeks, the Summer Think Tank will foster discussions around creative practice and American identities and experiences. The first of these conversations will kick off in June and involve Visiting Mentor artists Mildred Howard (invited guests: Devin Malone and Delphine Sims) and William Cordova (invited guests: Robert Pruitt and Nathaniel Donnett). 

This cohort will then join Lunder Institute summer 2023 resident fellows, Genevieve Gaignard and Papay Solomon, and their chosen guests, Kenny Rivero and Liat Yossifor.

In keeping with our goal to provide a safe and fertile space for participants, we intentionally invited artists to select other artists and peers in the field to engage with other invitees as well as with Colby Museum staff, students, and faculty.   Our hope is that these new conversations will also introduce ideas and methods of addressing how and why the state of American art, with relation to Black artists, producers, scholars, and practitioners whose work intersects and/or influences American art, can lead us to innovations in the field. 

As a unique incubator of research and practice, the Lunder Institute seeks to offer a platform for field-wide discussion, supporting, fostering, documenting, and sharing the knowledge and new questions that emerge.

Later through the month, one of our chefs in residence, Chef Louis Pickens, will return and join Summer Think Tank guests for a series of curated supper clubs and discussions inspired by art and the culture of food.

Though the conversations are not open to the general public, each will be recorded and preserved in an oral history archive for researchers to access.

The Lunder Institute for American Art is excited to welcome a new cohort of resident fellows to take up residence in Waterville for a summer of collaboration and community building.

Established in 2021, Lunder Institute residential fellowships provide artists with spacious studios as well as opportunities for collaboration with Colby College faculty, students, and staff, the Waterville community, and the Maine arts community. This studio program, based out of the Greene Block + Studios in downtown Waterville, Maine, encompasses artists at all stages of their careers and working in a range of artistic disciplines and mediums. Resident fellows are provided with housing and a stipend, have access to Colby College campus facilities, and are in dialogue with local organizations and community members.

This summer, resident fellows will also engage with our chefs in residence and participate in the Lunder Institute’s inaugural Summer Think Tank program, a new initiative aimed at providing a safe and fertile space for invited guests, including artists, scholars, and other thought leaders and cultural workers to be in conversation about relevant and urgent questions and topics in the field of American art. 

Joining the program this year are Genevieve Gaignard, a multidisciplinary artist who uses self-portraiture, collage, sculpture and installation to elicit dialogue around the intricacies of race, beauty and cultural identity, and Papay Solomon, a visual artist who marshals the language of portraiture to complexify African narratives beyond dominant discourses.

Learn more about this group of artists and read their bios on our Summer 2023 Resident Fellows page.

Image: Genevieve Gaignard (left) and Papay Solomon.

On Monday evening, April 3, Taryn D. Jordan, professor of women’s studies at Colgate University, joined chef, food justice activist, artist, critically acclaimed author, and community builder Bryant Terry for a conversation about food inequality, Black food, and history.

Terry fights for a more just and sustainable food system. His work illuminates the intersections that exist between poverty, structural racism, and food insecurity, in order to pave a new path forward. In his new book Black Food, he offers a stunning and deeply heartfelt tribute to Black culinary ingenuity, capturing the broad and divergent voices of the African Diaspora in a way that’s never been done before.

This event was part of the Colby Center for the Arts and Humanities’ annual theme, Food for Thought, which seeks to problematize and critically assess the complex social, cultural, environmental, political relationships we have with food.

This program was sponsored by the Colby Center for the Arts and Humanities with support from the African American studies department, the Colby Arts Office, the Cultural Events Committee, the Colby College Museum of Art’s Lunder Institute for American Art, the Office of the President, and the Office of the Provost. 

Greene Block + Studios
Monday, April 10, 6–7pm

Greene Block + Studios, 18 Main Street, Waterville
Monday, April 3, 6:30–7:30pm

Join chef, food justice activist, artist, critically acclaimed author, and community builder Bryant Terry for a conversation with Taryn D. Jordan, professor of women’s studies at Colgate University, about food inequality, Black food, and history.

Terry fights for a more just and sustainable food system. His work illuminates the intersections that exist between poverty, structural racism, and food insecurity, in order to pave a new path forward. In his new book Black Food, he offers a stunning and deeply heartfelt tribute to Black culinary ingenuity, capturing the broad and divergent voices of the African Diaspora in a way that’s never been done before.

This event is part of the Colby Center for the Arts and Humanities’ annual theme, Food for Thought, which seeks to problematize and critically assess the complex social, cultural, environmental, political relationships we have with food.

Local food vendors will be on-hand provide food for this event.

This program is sponsored by the Colby Center for the Arts and Humanities with support from the African American studies department, the Colby Arts Office, the Cultural Events Committee, the Colby College Museum of Art’s Lunder Institute for American Art, the Office of the President, and the Office of the Provost.