Resident artists Alejandro Figueredo Díaz-Perera and Cara Megan Lewis will work with Bucknell students on this social art project which addresses the detention of immigrants in the U.S. This Samek Art Museum exhibition inaugurates the new annual EKARD Artist-in-Residence at Bucknell and will appear in the Samek Gallery April 10-29.
Diaz-Perara and Lewis will give the inaugural artist-in-residence talk on Thursday, April 19, at 6:30 p.m. in the Gallery Theater, top floor, Elaine Langone Center. The event is free and open to the public.
Since 2012, they have created work that draws connections between the personal and the political. For this new project they have mined a personal family narrative connected to the migratory history of the United States.
During their residency at Bucknell, the artist duo embarked upon a project to re-create 17th Century doublets believed to best represent the 30 coats traded by the English settlers for the “Land of Thirty Mile Island” in 1662. In exchange for roughly 104 square miles of land, two Wangunk Sachems (Queens) and two Wangunk Chiefs received 30 coats. The land traded with the deed dated May 20, 1662 is known today as Haddam, Conn.
The coats are created with dryer lint collected from Haddam, Conn. and surrounding east coast communities. Within each coat, skin cells, hair, dust and textile fibers from diverse sources blend together in a singular object.
This exhibition is made possible by the support of the EKARD Residents Art Fund and is presented in partnership with the Bucknell Department of Art and Art History.