DIGITAL PORCH CONVERSATION ︎︎︎ Melanie Crean and Shaun Leonardo with Paul Pfeiffer and Amy Sadao
ABOUT OUR GUEST: Melanie Crean
Melanie Crean is an artist, educator and filmmaker based in NY. In her practice she researches industrial architectures of control that are read onto site and body, and explores how these structures and systems can be challenged and re-patterned. She works with voice in its diverse forms, often through performance, ritual and non-verbal communication as measures of resistance to reclaim contested spaces, whether they be the built environment, one’s own body, or the production of history.
She believes in principals of inter-communalism, frequently working collaboratively to reimagine new ways of relating and learning. The aesthetic forms she creates include photography, video, social engagement, immersive media, participatory film, speculative design and open curriculum.
Crean is an Associate Professor of Art, Media and Technology at Parsons School of Design in New York, teaching courses on emerging media, social engagement and visual culture. Her recent work includes A Blade of Grass fellowship collaborating with young equestrians and law enforcement in Hartford, CT; a FACT commission working with incarcerated veterans in Liverpool UK; and a commission with Artspace New Haven critiquing the nature of justice fifty years after trials of the New Haven 9. Her work has been supported by Art in General, Creative Capital, Franklin Furnace, No Longer Empty and The New Museum.
@creanmc
Melanie Crean is an artist, educator and filmmaker based in NY. In her practice she researches industrial architectures of control that are read onto site and body, and explores how these structures and systems can be challenged and re-patterned. She works with voice in its diverse forms, often through performance, ritual and non-verbal communication as measures of resistance to reclaim contested spaces, whether they be the built environment, one’s own body, or the production of history.
She believes in principals of inter-communalism, frequently working collaboratively to reimagine new ways of relating and learning. The aesthetic forms she creates include photography, video, social engagement, immersive media, participatory film, speculative design and open curriculum.
Crean is an Associate Professor of Art, Media and Technology at Parsons School of Design in New York, teaching courses on emerging media, social engagement and visual culture. Her recent work includes A Blade of Grass fellowship collaborating with young equestrians and law enforcement in Hartford, CT; a FACT commission working with incarcerated veterans in Liverpool UK; and a commission with Artspace New Haven critiquing the nature of justice fifty years after trials of the New Haven 9. Her work has been supported by Art in General, Creative Capital, Franklin Furnace, No Longer Empty and The New Museum.
@creanmc
ABOUT OUR GUEST: Shaun Leonardo
Shaun Leonardo is a Brooklyn-based artist from Queens, New York City, recently profiled in the New York Times and CNN. His work has been featured at The Guggenheim Museum, the High Line, New Museum, MASS MoCA, The Brooklyn Museum of Art, The Studio Museum, and The Bronx Museum, with his first major public art commission now on view at FDR Four Freedoms State Park.
Leonardo’s artwork negotiates societal expectations of gender and sex, along with its notions of achievement, collective identity, and the experience of failure. In his work as an educator, Leonardo promotes the political potential of attention, self-reflection, and discomfort as a means to create awareness, disrupt meaning, and shift perspective. He is currently Manager of School, Youth & Community Programs at the New Museum and has worked as an educator at the Fortune Society, Socrates Sculpture Park, Cooper Union’s Outreach program and The Point (Bronx).
He received his MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute and has received awards from Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture; The New York Studio School; Lower Manhattan Cultural Council; Art Matters; New York Foundation for the Arts; McColl Center for Visual Art; Franklin Furnace; and The Jerome Foundation.
Leonardo’s current collaborative work, Mirror / Echo / Tilt, is funded by Creative Capital.
@elcleonardo
@recessart
Shaun Leonardo is a Brooklyn-based artist from Queens, New York City, recently profiled in the New York Times and CNN. His work has been featured at The Guggenheim Museum, the High Line, New Museum, MASS MoCA, The Brooklyn Museum of Art, The Studio Museum, and The Bronx Museum, with his first major public art commission now on view at FDR Four Freedoms State Park.
Leonardo’s artwork negotiates societal expectations of gender and sex, along with its notions of achievement, collective identity, and the experience of failure. In his work as an educator, Leonardo promotes the political potential of attention, self-reflection, and discomfort as a means to create awareness, disrupt meaning, and shift perspective. He is currently Manager of School, Youth & Community Programs at the New Museum and has worked as an educator at the Fortune Society, Socrates Sculpture Park, Cooper Union’s Outreach program and The Point (Bronx).
He received his MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute and has received awards from Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture; The New York Studio School; Lower Manhattan Cultural Council; Art Matters; New York Foundation for the Arts; McColl Center for Visual Art; Franklin Furnace; and The Jerome Foundation.
Leonardo’s current collaborative work, Mirror / Echo / Tilt, is funded by Creative Capital.
@elcleonardo
@recessart