01/30/19

AMES, Iowa — Emily Hermant, an interdisciplinary artist whose large-scale work explores themes of communication, gender, labor and the spatial experiences of the body, will speak at Iowa State University Monday, Feb. 4.

Hermant’s lecture, “Materializing Time and Space,” will begin at 5:30 p.m. in room 130 College of Design. The presentation will cover the past decade of her interdisciplinary art and materials-based practice, which spans textiles, sculpture, installation and digital technologies.

Hermant will trace her beginnings creating fiber-based handwork and temporal, thread-based installations to more recent work that examines the physicality of immaterial data transmission using the materials that enable wireless and virtual communication.

This recent and growing body of work, which focuses on the relationship between the hand and methods of digital processing, is intended to examine the impacts of technological mediation on communication. Through recent sculptural works, installations, material drawings and prints, Hermant’s focus has been to explore relationships among color, line, movement, space and perception vis-à-vis the speed and motion of digital information.

While at Iowa State, Hermant will meet with undergraduate integrated studio arts and graduate integrated visual arts students and participate in critiques with the Constructing Textiles: Computation and Soft Formworks studio taught by Shelby Doyle, assistant professor of architecture, and Olivia Valentine, assistant professor of art and visual culture and interdisciplinary design.

Hermant’s visit is cosponsored by the College of Design, Departments of Architecture and Art and Visual Culture, and design studies program.

About the speaker

Hermant received her Bachelor of Fine Arts with distinction in studio arts and religion from Concordia University, Montréal, Quebec, in 2004, and her Master of Fine arts as a Trustee Merit Scholar in fiber and material studies from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2010. Her work has been exhibited in museums, galleries and festivals in Canada, the United States, South America and Europe, and has been featured in LVL3 Media, ArtSlant, Espace Sculpture, The Washington Post, and TimeOut Chicago.

Hermant has taught at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond; Concordia University and Tulane University, New Orleans. She is currently based in Vancouver, British Columbia, where she is an assistant professor in the Audain Faculty of Art at Emily Carr University of Art and Design.

Contacts

Olivia Valentine, Art and Visual Culture / Interdisciplinary Design, ovalen@iastate.edu
Heather Sauer, Design Communications, (515) 294-9289, hsauer@iastate.edu

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