The Lunder Institute for American Art is excited to welcome a new cohort of fellows for the 2024 spring semester.The Lunder Institute supports scholarly and creative research by selecting one or more scholars, curators, or artists annually whose work aligns with its mission of reshaping the contours of American Art. These fellows contribute to the Colby College community through a myriad of means, including academic engagement, public programs, onsite visits, and mining the Colby College Museum of Art’s permanent collection for inspiration.

Already at work remotely are the collaborative duo Enzo Camacho and Ami Lien, artists and writers from the United States and the Philippines. Together, their artistic practice moves from the Philippines outwards to other places, addressing localized iterations of labor and capital from the perspective of imperial damage.

Camacho and Lien’s fellowship will culminate in a visit to Waterville in the summer of 2024, during which they will participate in a series of community events. Prior to their site visit, Camacho and Lien will also conduct research into works in the museum’s Lunder Collection and other holdings made by unnamed artists, based on their own interest in folk or “peoples” vernacular. There will also be opportunities for students and faculty to be in virtual conversation with the artists during the spring ’24 semester.

Interdisciplinary artist Brian Smith will be in residence with the Lunder Institute from January to May of 2024, and will spend the entirety of the spring academic semester onsite, living and working within the Waterville community. Based in Portland, Maine, Smith’s practice draws on queer theory to complicate traditionally held views of nature as separate from human society. During his fellowship, Smith will focus on the development of a body of work that explores the relationship between humanity and the rising oceans through the perspective of queer ecology.

Smith’s fellowship period will advance his inquiries into the role of adaptation, transformation, and interconnectedness in our shared future. While in residence, Smith will mentor a Colby student interested in visual arts and environmental studies through a partnership sponsored by the college’s Buck Lab for Climate and Environment. The campus’s student and scholarly community will also have opportunities to engage with Smith in the studio and classroom. During his time on campus, Smith will research and learn from artists with conceptual and material underpinnings related to his own practice represented in the Colby Museum’s collection, including holdings by Frank Moore, Thaddeus Mosley, Hew Locke, Daphne Cummings, and Ashley Bryan.

Artists and scholars Yumi Janairo Roth and Emmanuel David’s collaborative research examines the experiences of Filipino performers in “Wild West” shows, including the well-known Buffalo Bill’s Wild West traveling show, between 1899–1900, foregrounding their importance and establishing connections between the shows and the Spanish-American and Philippine-American wars. Over the course of their fellowship, Roth and David’s research and creative production will continue to draw attention to this overlooked group of Asian performers, situating them in the context of U.S. imperial expansion. Through this work, Roth and David aim to fill a major gap in the historical record and enhance understandings of the transnational aspects of the American West.

As Lunder Institute fellows, Roth and David will engage with the Lunder Collection’s robust holdings pertaining to the American West, including works by James McNeill Whistler, Alfred Jacob Miller, and Albert Bierstadt. Beyond mining the museum’s collection, Roth and David will utilize their fellowship to continue their scholarly inquiries into modes of representation of Filipinos at the turn of the century, revealing new understandings of the Filipino performers who traveled with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West, a group that Roth and David collectively refer to as the Filipino Rough Riders. Roth and David also create artworks related to their research, including the site-specific series, We Are Coming, that installs the names of the Rough Riders on historic marquees. During their tenure as fellows, Roth and David will explore the potential for marquee installations in Maine, drawing out trans-regional connections between the Rough Riders and the numerous Maine locations that hosted Buffalo Bill’s Wild West shows in 1900, including Biddeford, Lewiston, Bangor, Dover, Augusta, and Portland. Additionally, Roth and David plan to produce a speculative archive that blends fiction and reality through created ephemera and “documentary” evidence of Filipino history in the United States. Roth and David’s fellowship will take the form of iterative visits to Colby College over the course of a year, with opportunities for faculty, staff, and surrounding community to engage with their scholarship.

Lien, Camacho, Smith, Janairo Roth, and David will join returning fellows Dominique Duroseau and Papay Solomon, who will each continue their fellowships into the spring.

Image: Enzo Camacho, Ami Lien, Brian Smith, Yumi Janairo Roth, and Emmanuel David.

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