This past Thursday, March 10, Lee Emma Running, Art, gave a gallery talk entitled “Unmapped Topography: Collaboration and Exploration” with her collaborator Tatiana Ginsberg, currently a visiting professor at Mount Holyoke College. They spoke about their correspondence through letter writing and how it led to most of their joint exhibit.
The collaboration that led to their current show in Faulconer Gallery, “Kind Favor, Kind Letter,” began with letter writing, as they felt it was important “to have the marks of their own hand” according to Ginsberg. It is through this act of letter writing that they began to find very strong parallels in their work.
Ginsberg and Running met in 2003 while studying paper making; in learning this process they became interested in “the idea of garlanded information, and the secret language [they] had in their hands” said Ginsberg.
Ginsberg emphasized that the process of making paper is very time consuming, but also very addicting.
“[You] are transforming raw material, you already have embedded in your process a lot of information that is you. You must constantly remain attentive to the delicate fibers and sheet formation,” Ginsberg said. “You create a history with what you’ve made.
She says this process makes the product more meaningful. Running moved on to talk about other processes that are unseen to most of us, paper’s beginning as a vat of pulp to its conclusion as thin, pliable material.
“[We] became engaged in the aesthetics of the process and the aesthetics of the finished element,” Running said.
It is the transformation of paper that both artists highlighted throughout the event.
After the talk, both Ginsberg and Running moved over to the space of their exhibit in Faulconer and took questions from audience members about the different pieces. One question that intrigued many of the visitors was how the title of their installation came about.
“I’m sending you a favor, I’m sending you a letter,” Running said, of their focus on the sent materials coming together to mean something.
Their show will be on display until March 20.
