Mia Feuer: An Unkindness
There is an opportunity for student volunteers to work on the Corcoran’s newest NOW at the Corcoran exhibition: Mia Feuer: An Unkindness. At the center of this exhibition is a synthetic black skating rink in the museum’s Rotunda, for use by one member of the public at a time. Exhibition volunteers will assist with managing the rink during open hours, and guiding the public through this artwork. A former Corcoran professor, Mia Feuer has actively worked with students to create her project, and this opportunity continues the involvement of the Corcoran community in her exhibition.
Responsibilities
- Management of skate distribution
- Talking with visitors about the exhibition
- Getting feedback from visitors about their experience in the exhibition
Volunteer Requirements
- Work at least six 3-hour shifts between November 2, 2013–February 23, 2014
- Attend one volunteer training session. Sessions will be offered Wednesday, October 30, 5:30–7:00 p.m., and Thursday, October 31, 11 a.m.–12:30 p.m.
Exhibition Description
Mia Feuer’s new project for the Corcoran is a haunting vision of nature consumed, transformed, and twisted by human need. Inspired by the artist’s experiences in the oil-producing landscapes of the Canadian tar sands, the Arctic Circle, and the Suez Canal, An Unkindness explores the relationships between human infrastructure and the natural world.
For the past several years, Feuer has traveled around the world to places where oil is extracted from the earth and created work that responds to the social and environmental effects of that process. In 2011 and 2012, she gained restricted access to an oil production plant in the tar sands of Alberta, Canada, where she observed an ecosystem reshaped—with nightmarish logic—by desolate plains, inverted trees, and imported birds of prey. Responding to this landscape, Feuer developed An Unkindness, the title of which refers to a gathering of ravens. In the exhibition, Feuer merges imagery from the oil sands with her own experiences growing up in Canada and her research into ecological systems worldwide. The result is a series of immersive installations that are at once topical and deeply personal, including a synthetic black skating rink open to the public in the museum’s Rotunda.
Feuer is the first Washington, D.C.-based artist to be featured in a NOW at the Corcoran exhibition. She received her BFA from University of Manitoba in Canada, and her MFA from the Department of Sculpture and Extended Media at Virginia Commonwealth University in 2009. She recently had solo exhibitions at Conner Contemporary, Washington, D.C. (2011); Atlanta Center for Contemporary Art (2011); Transformer Gallery, Washington, D.C. (2010); Arlington Arts Center (2010), and FLUXspace Gallery, Philadelphia (2009). Feuer’s upcoming projects include exhibitions at the Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.; the Klondike Institute for Arts and Humanities in The Yukon Territories, Canada; and RAW Gallery of Architecture and Design, Canada.
Feuer has been awarded fellowships by the Bemis Center for Contemporary Art in Omaha, the D.C. Commission for Arts and Humanities, the Trawick Foundation, and the Canada Council for the Arts. She has taken part in numerous residencies, including Sculpture Space, Utica, NY; Vermont Studio Center; the MacDowell Colony for the Arts, NH; the Arctic Circle Artist Residency; and the Millay Colony for the Arts, NY. She teaches sculpture at George Mason University, VA, and lives and works in Washington, D.C.
Applications due October 1 and should include a resume, a letter of interest, and availability emailed to Caroline Space, [email protected].