In Conversation with the Driehaus Museum’s A Tale of Today: Emerging Artist Fellows

Originally Presented on
Sunday, April 11, 2020

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This virtual panel discussion will explore the conceptual and programmatic impact of the Driehaus Museum’s A Tale of Today: Emerging Artists Fellowship on the work and trajectory of the museum’s Fellows. Now in its second pilot year, the Fellowship program supports promising and emerging talent from Chicago’s art community through a career-building opportunity to engage with the network and audience of the Driehaus Museum.

The Fellowship is inspired by the many facets of the Nickerson Mansion, the Driehaus Museum’s home, but especially by the building’s legacy an incubator for learning as art students in the late 19th century were invited to study from the Nickerson’s extensive art collection and to utilize their art gallery as a place to develop and gain inspiration for their own work.

We will discuss how the history and architecture of the Driehaus Museum inspired the works on view as well as the key insights the Fellows have gained from this experience.

Presented in partnership with EXPO CHICAGO.

Alexandria Eregbu is an interdisciplinary artist and curator whose practice draws from history, lived experiences, and her own imagination to deepen her connectivity to the natural world. Her work is driven by memories, whether real or dreamt, as well as the history and culture of West Africa.

Devin T. Mays’ practice is driven by an investigation of the so-called “in-between” space created by the polarities in his identity. He is interested in developing a visual language that defines and re-defines the “in-between” being.

Maryam Taghavi is a Tehran-born Chicago-based interdisciplinary artist working in photography, installation, video, publication, drawing, and performance. She employs a post-studio, site-specific practice that weighs in on and intervenes in existing modes of production.

Unyimeabasi Udoh is an artist and graphic designer whose work is driven by the idea of making peace with the notion of the void. Udoh works across various and is interested in topics including surface and absence, text as image, and blackness as a color and a construct.

Kekeli Sumah is an artist, curator, and designer living in Chicago whose practice is interested in history, agency, and visual culture. As the Driehaus Museum’s first Curatorial Fellow, Sumah curated A Tale of Today: Nate Young and Mika Horibuchi, in addition to guiding the A Tale of Today: Emerging Artist Fellows through their experience.