Making Memory

New Harmony Gallery of Contemporary Art, University of Southern Indiana is proud to present Making Memory: Sara Christensen Blair & Janine Polak. Curated by New Harmony Gallery of Contemporary Art curator Audra Verona Lambert, this two-person exhibit features sculpture and installation by Polak (born Nebraska, lives/works New York) and Blair (born South Dakota, lives/ works in Indiana.) Works on view speak to the potent ability of material to evoke memory and lived experience. Making Memory is on view from June 8 through July 20th, with an opening reception on Saturday, June 8th from 3-5 PM at which artists and curator will be in attendance. An additional event in dialogue with exhibition themes incorporating psychology and gender roles will take place via Zoom on June 20th at 2 PM CT with University of Southern Indiana professor, Dr. Aimee Mark - free and open to the public. Link to view recorded talk: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/mxva8nz8liq8isj796x3p/Making-Memory-Personal-Collective-Histories-Contemp-Art.mp4?rlkey=zyzo9elxbgopbj7g1g386i6in&st=79fyory9&dl=0

Visitors to the New Harmony Gallery of Contemporary Art can see the exhibit during open hours from Tuesday – Saturdays, 10 am – 5 pm CT. 

Where both artists create work in dialogue with labor, featuring tasks such as sewing, darning, and knitting - work which has historically been done by women - artist Janine Polak speaks to the duality of persistence and erasure, fragility and strength. The artist preserves found garments into porcelain and glass sculptures that slow the eye of the viewer, prompting a reconsideration of the object itself. What at first glance appears as everyday objects reveal themselves upon closer inspection to be sculptural forms that embrace unusual and hybrid materiality and processes.

Sara Christensen Blair tackles the persistence of certain traditions with historical gender roles in her installation and sculpture. The artist takes on found objects as an integral part of her artistic practice, working with both everyday objects and remnants of family heirlooms and craft. In Feminism and Cultural Memory, Hirsch and Smith observe that, “Feminist art and scholarship have worked to restore to hegemonic cultural memory the stories that have been forgotten or erased... feminism... has de-familiarized and thus re-envisioned traditional modes of knowing the past.”(1) In the practices of both artists, visitors can find reclaimed fragments of personal cultural memory subsumed into tactile narratives that shift from materiality to personal dialogue: a visual and psychological mirage hovering and present in the physical realm. 

Sara Christensen Blair (she/her) is a Professor and the Chair of the Art + Design Department at the University of Southern Indiana. She holds a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, followed by an MFA, Mixed Media from the University of North Dakota with an emphasis in Fibers, Painting and Metals. The artist holds a PhD, Visual Arts: Aesthetics, Art Theory and Philosophy from the Institute for Doctoral Studies in the Visual Arts (2022.) As a mixed-media artist, she contends with labor, craft and the roles these both play in contemporary culture. She has exhibited with the University of Minnesota, Truman State University, CraftHouse 40, The Torpedo Art Center and the Pelham Art Center. 

Born in Nebraska, Janine Polak (she/her) grew up primarily in Virginia Beach, VA. She received a BA in Studio Art, Sculpture and Photography and Economics from the University of Virginia in 2005, and was awarded an Aunspaugh Fellowship at UVA the following year. In 2008, she earned an MFA from the Yale University School of Art, Department of Sculpture. Her work has been exhibited in solo shows at Essex Flowers, NYC; Lorimoto, NYC; Ernestine, NYC and Sardine, NYC and group exhibitions including Brennan & Griffin, Equity Gallery, Tiger Strikes Asteroid, Sculpture Space and more. She’s exhibited internationally in Iceland, China and Australia. The artist is Assistant Professor of Art+Design and the Chair of the Art Foundations (first year) Department at Purchase College (SUNY,) and is based in Ridgewood, Queens, NY. 

Audra Verona Lambert (she/they) is an art historian and curator, New Harmony Gallery of Contemporary Art. She has worked as a curator for institutions and independently for 12 years. She has curated exhibitions for New York City Parks & Recreation, TransBorder Art at Governor’s Island, The Factory: LIC, Yeshiva University Museum, The Yard: Williamsburg and more, and her writing has been commissioned by Texte zur Kunst, Whitehot Magazine for Contemporary Art, Americans for the Arts and more. Audra holds a BA in Art History/Asian Studies from St. Peter’s University, and they completed an MA, Art History + Visual Culture from Lindenwood