MFA|EDA 2018 Thesis Exhibition
Open To The PublicTwo students in the MFA|EDA class of 2018 present their culminating work in Gallery 235: Nadia Stevens (“Dream of Angels”) and Laurids Andersen Sonne (“Man From Iota”).
About "Dream of Angels"
Artist’s description:
I sat down with my grandmother on an odd day when she was home alone. Usually she’s surrounded by family; my aunt, mom, cousins, siblings. She’s 95 years old, and she’s our angel.
I asked her to read a voiceover for my film; she agreed, but not without telling me how much she dislikes the sound of her voice. She cleared her throat and read the text I presented:
Some 130 million years ago, in a galaxy far away, the smoldering cores of two collapsed stars smashed into each other. The resulting explosion sent a burst of gamma rays streaming through space and rippled the very fabric of the universe.
The collision was the first cosmic event in history to be witnessed via both traditional telescopes and gravitational wave detectors, heralding a new era in space research called multi-messenger astrophysics. Allowing us to observe the universe using two fundamental forces: light and gravity.
After her dictation, she flashed me an incredulous look that said, “What the hell is this?” I brushed it off like I normally do when my family responds to my actions with confusion, and I decided to take the opportunity to let my recorder roll and see what she’d let me know. There were a few stories I knew I wanted to hear, but there were still others that I was about to hear for the first time. 95 years of life leads to 95 years of stories. Who knew?
About "Man from Iota"
Artist’s description:
When man encountered the island, he wondered where the roar of the ocean ended and the tone of the mist began. From somewhere in between, beyond his farthest plane of perception, a passerine emerged guided by a different migratory time.
As a body of work, Man from Iota uses various mediums – moving image, sound, sculpture and drawing – to engage, evolve, digress, correspond, mimic and contest itself from the desire to paint a continuously fluctuating picture of the experiential world that is its canvas.
Man from Iota investigates the correspondence of time and the instance of man’s existence in it, the desire for the unattainable freedom of flight within this instance, while being tethered to the rock of time and history, his own doing within it and his desire for quantifiable knowledge.
