Now that things are opening up again a bit, Annie Dugan is taking her college students on field trips.
Recently they took in an ongoing group exhibition at the Joseph Nease Gallery, where a small video piece by Jonathan Thunder is displayed by some of his paintings ...
"...v.2 also includes one new and one recent painting by Jonathan Thunder. The Doctrine of Rediscovery addresses the cultural difference between native knowledge and traditions, and imposed assimilation tactics of the U.S. government, including failures of recent officials.. The 2021 painting The Lighthouse has its historical precedent in the well-known 19th century painting Washington Crossing the Delaware by Emanuel Leutze. In Jonathan's The Lighthouse, an all black-white-gray painting, the occupants of the boat are misled by a leader resembling the Hamburglar, Marvin the Martian, and other looney-esque characters trying to make their way; only a lone woman with child notices the lighthouse in the opposite direction from which they are going."from the website description
And an interactive piece by Joellyn Rock is also featured.
"'Fishnetstockings' is a new-media work by Joellyn Rock installed in our Gallery B. The participatory piece allows the audience to dive in and make virtual waves inside this alt version of a very old tale. A layered mix of digital video, text, silhouettes and cutout elements are motion activated with a combo of code, Processing and Kinect. It's digital projections include a mashup of historical references, folk patterns, and story fragments fished from the project's old twitter feed and its current google forms feed. The audience has multiple modes for participation. Move your body inside the projections and interact with hybrid sea creatures that float through the narrative. Or, cast your own words into the google form net and voice alternative endings to the bad bargains made by little mermaids."from the website description
Meanwhile, at UWS, the archives are home to the Great Lakes Maritime History Project, and they have a series of photographs on display that illustrate the history of shipping - and photography - here on Lake Superior.
Then Annie recommends a fascinating article about a woman whose face you may recognize, even if you never knew her name: (Jackson Arn, Dec 26, 2018 4:00pm, The Pre-Raphaelites’ Muse, Leading Light, and Sacrificial Lamb, Artsy, accessed 11/8/2021)