PULLMAN, Wash. – Marie Watt, an artist based in Portland, Ore., will deliver the 2018 Jo Hockenhull Distinguished Lecture in Women’s Studies, 4:30 p.m. Thursday, April 12, in the Fine Arts Building Auditorium, room 5062.
Using various media, including reclaimed wool blankets, felt, pine, cedar and iron, Watt’s work grapples with indigenous politics, feminism and the relationship between history and memory. She will discuss the connections between art, activism and feminist politics during her free, public address. A reception will follow.
Watt is a member of the Turtle Clan of the Seneca Nation and mobilizes several Native American traditions of storytelling and community formation in her work. In 2015, she worked on a piece in which she conducted sewing circles with students from Tierra Ecnantada High School, in Santa Fe, N.M., to draw attention to the collaborative nature of aesthetic creations.
Watt’s work has been exhibited at the Tacoma Art Museum, the Rockwell Museum, Northwestern University’s Block Museum of Art, the Denver Art Museum and other places. She received her master of fine arts degree in painting and printmaking from Yale University.
Her most recent exhibition, “Companion Species (Underbelly)” will be on display April 6-Sept. 1 at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art WSU, which organized the lecture with the Women’s Studies Program and Fine Arts Department, both in the College of Arts and Sciences. The Plateau Center at WSU is cosponsoring Watt’s lecture.
About the Hockenhull series
The lecture series was launched in 1996 to honor Jo Hockenhull, a WSU emeritus professor of fine arts who served as director of women’s studies for more than a decade. At WSU, Hockenhull focused on building programs and initiatives supporting diversity, the liberal arts, free speech and critical thinking.
Past lecturers have been visual artists, poets and performance artists who emphasized the important connections between art, social justice and political practice. They include Octavia Butler, Coco Fusco, the Guerrilla Girls, Anna Chavez, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Ayana Jackson and Jin-me Yoon.
Contacts:
- Nishant Shahani, assistant professor, Dept. of Critical Culture, Gender, & Race Studies, Women’s Studies Program, 509-335-5286, nshahani3@wsu.edu,
- Squeak Meisel, associate professor and chair, Department of Fine Arts, 509-335-8686, squeak.meisel@wsu.edu
- Ryan Hardesty, manger, Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art WSU, 509-335-5286, ryan.hardesty@wsu.edu
