Visiting Artists Enhance Haystack

“Craft is persistent. Craft is long. And craft matters. I want people to understand that craft can be a lens to think about the world.” -Namita Gupta Wiggers, 2023 Visiting Artist

Haystack is renowned as a place for artists–teachers and students alike–to come together and dig deep into materials and methods through our intensive 1- and 2-week workshops. While this is at the forefront of our programming, the School also serves as a space for visionaries to come and explore ideas and practices that challenge and advance the field of craft. Haystack’s Visiting Artist Program extends our commitment to providing time and space for the development of in-progress projects and new ideas in a variety of creative disciplines.

Poster for international workshop that Bundone was involved closely with.
Image courtesy of the artist.

Formally introduced as part of our programming in 2007, the Visiting Artists Program fosters a supported environment for invited individuals–from writers to curators, musicians to scientists–to immerse themselves in the creative current that runs through the campus with an intent to deepen their own connection to their work and practice. In addition to working on their own creative project(s), visiting artists identify a direction or theme to focus on and spend part of their session at Haystack exploring that idea with participants and faculty through informal workshops, conversations, and activities.

Haystack invited five visionary artists to join us during this year’s summer sessions: Namita Gupta Wiggers, a writer, educator, and curator based in Portland, OR; Stephanie Syjuco, artist and sculpture professor at UC Berkeley, CA; Luigi Elio Alessandro Bundone, PhD, the founding Director of the nonprofit organization Archipelagos-ambiente e sviluppo Italia, Cultore della Materia at the Ca’ Foscari University, Venice; Claudia Bueno, a sculpture and jewelry artist who creates large-scale immersive installations; and Michelle Millar Fisher the Ronald C. and Anita L. Wornick Curator of Contemporary Decorative Arts at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, MA.

Each of the 2023 Visiting Artists are advancing the practice and study of Craft in compelling and critical ways. They approach it as a means to explore, challenge, and inform the world around us, communicate ideas across disciplines, and to address the complicated history of the arts and artists in our museums, books, and collections.

For Wiggars, who was just awarded a Smithsonian American Art Museum 2023–2024 Fellowship, this time is an opportunity to delve deeper into her research of craft histories and theories, using Haystack’s own library as the subject. Titled, “Library as Toolbox: Which Craft Lives on the Haystack Shelves?” she addresses how collections are a complex resource that reveal so much by what is –and isn’t– included within them. This ongoing project, starting in Session 1 and continuing throughout the season, is aimed at engaging participants with the library collection, and getting “conversations going with everyone coming to campus throughout the summer. By leaving the project in an interactive state, I hope others will think more about how they construct knowledge, what knowledge is missing, and how we can make space in craft for future generations.”

“The Visible Invisible,” by Syjuco. Image courtesy of the artist.

In a similar investigative vein, Syjuco, who works across the disciplines of photography, sculpture, installations, and archival work, is recently using archives and libraries as sources to explore the created narratives and histories of citizenship and belonging in America. Her focus during her residency will, according to Syjuco, “think through how both material investigation and forms of research (through museum collections, archives, databases, libraries, folklore, and field work) collide and connect in our studios…Participants will discuss their own projects and share strategies and opportunities for creating research-based works.” Syjuco’s work is being featured as part of the upcoming Going Dark: The Contemporary Figure at the Edge of Visibility exhibition at The Guggenheim, which will open in October of 2023.

As part of the research and development for an upcoming book and exhibition, tentatively titled “Craft Schools: Where We Make What We Inherit,” curator Fisher has been traversing the 48 contiguous states, visiting sites of important craft education and study. During her residency with the Session 5 cohort, she will spend time in each of the studios, engaging with faculty and students, and facilitating conversation around her ongoing research on craft schools and their legacy. It will be, according to Fisher, an “open conversation exploring the question ‘Who brought you to your craft practice?’’’ This question will be the catalyst for further discussion, and “participants will reflect on intersecting identities, familial inheritances, and engaging with one’s forebears as a way to form new craft knowledge.”

For Bueno, the examination and practice of craft is looking toward the future and how technology can -and will- influence and enhance the creative process, and her focus at Haystack will explore this and other creative channels to link creative practice with nature and spirituality. Her work straddles traditional and technological art forms resulting in multi-sensory, multimedia, immersive installations. She artfully blends light, sound, shadow, and materials into creations that “communicate a profound sense of wonderment and awe and offer experiences of deep connection…presenting contemplative journeys through hypnotic worlds that are populated by signatures of life from micro to macro, existing in communion and living as one interconnected cosmic web.” The Hermitage Museum & Gardens in Norfolk, Virginia will be featuring Bueno’s work in a 3-month solo exhibition opening June 3, 2023, in which her work flows through multiple galleries and spaces, indoors and out, titled “Echoes of the Heart.”

“FractaLife” installation by Bueno. Image courtesy of the artist.

Bundone’s ongoing work with the conservation and protection of the endangered Mediterranean Monk Seal has led to a collaboration with Session 3 Graphics artist/instructor Barbara Putnam that explores how art in all forms can be a tool and, as Bundone described, a translator or intermediary between the scientific process and everyday life. “Art reaches the soul by transcending skill and description, not permitted in the language used by the scientist,” says Bundone. “Craft and art challenges me to think more deeply about something I thought I knew.”

The strength of Haystack’s Visiting Artist program lies in the opportunity of space and time for artists across disciplines–curators, researchers, writers, musicians, scientists, choreographers, playwrights, and educators–to develop their work and experiment with new ideas in a supported setting. There is a freedom in escaping work and life routines and being immersed in a creative environment, void of some of the structure or stressors that can accompany daily life. It is a meaningful way that Haystack supports these visionaries in their careers and creates connections with peers and thought leaders in the craft community that can be generative in finding new approaches and ideas in their work.

As part of Haystack’s public programming, each Visiting Artist will give an in-person presentation speaking to their work, influences, and interests. The greater community is welcomed to join us for these public presentations, at no cost. Dates and times can be found on our website HERE.

For more information about our Visiting Artists, and the Visiting Artist Program, please visit our website.