Interdisciplinary Colloquium

Eclipse: The 16th Annual Interdisciplinary Colloquium

8:00-12:10 -  Academic presentations in Carter Hall (UC West)

12:30-1:30 - Performance pieces in the Mallette Theater (Liberal Arts Center)

Virtual artwork on display (Ongoing):

• Epiphany Knedler, Adjunct in Art and Design, in collaboration with Tim Rickett (Northern State University), Here in the Mysterious Elsewhere
• Matt Merlo, Contract Assistant Professor of Physics, The Science of Solar Eclipses

Artwork and posters on display in Carter Hall: Throughout the day on April 8, we invite you to peruse the following sculptures and posters on display in Carter Hall

Art pieces by the students of Rob Millard-Mendez

• Alex Arwood, Hysteria
• Ella Dornburg, Moon Cycle
• Iain Girten, Convergence
• Payton Henn, Eclipse Zoetrope
• Jannelle James, Between Day & Night

Faculty art on display

• Rob Millard-Mendez, Professor of Art, The Phases of Luna
• Nancy Raen-Mendez, Instructor in Art, Celestial Painting

Posters on display

• Matt Merlo, Contract Assistant Professor of Physics, The Science of a Solar Eclipse

7:30-12:10 in Carter Hall

12:30-1:30 in the Mallette Theater**

**Note that all performance pieces will occur in the Mallette Theater, on the basement level of the Liberal Arts Center. Space is extremely limited – overflow livestream seating available in Kleymeyer Theater, similarly on the basement level of the LA.

Livestream link here

Epiphany Knedler, in collaboration with Tim Rickett

Here in the Mysterious Elsewhere 2023

Mixed media collage

Here in the Mysterious Elsewhere is an interdisciplinary exploration of Midwestern stories and culture through eclipse-like portals. The images create a glimpse into mystic and ethereal versions of the Midwest.

Midwest mythology is a tangled labyrinth of rural complexities. From the rugged cowboys traversing the land to the persistent spirit of the pioneers and the consistent exploitation of the land, the region is ripe with discrepancies. These ideals are a reflection of ourselves, both who we were and who we have become as a society. The Midwestern land and aesthetics are romanticized with a timelessness of the frontier. The mythology is rooted in legends of individualism, persistence, and historic conquests. Here in the Mysterious Elsewhere is an interdisciplinary exploration of Midwestern stories and culture. The phrase, from architect Frank Lloyd Wright, is his impression of the Badlands which gave him an indescribable feeling of “distant architecture, ethereal…an endless supernatural world more spiritual than earth but created out of it.” Through found objects, photographs, archival materials, and sculptures, this series investigates the indelible history of the Midwest.

I’ve been about the world a lot, and pretty much over the country, but I was totally unprepared for that revelation called the ‘Dakota Badlands.’ What I saw gave me an indescribable sense of mysterious elsewhere — a distant architecture, ethereal…an endless supernatural world more spiritual than earth but created out of it.

– Frank Lloyd Wright

The landscape…changes, but far more slowly; it is a living link between what we were and what we have become. This is one of the reasons why we feel such a profound and apparently disproportionate anguish when a loved landscape is altered out of recognition; we lose not only a place, but ourselves.

—Margaret Drabble, A Writer’s Britain, 2009 (2nd ed.)

The Science of Solar Eclipses
Dr. Matt Merlo
Contract Assistant Professor of Physics
Geology, Physics, and Environmental Science

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