Artist George Ferrandi will develop a performance and exhibition in a 10-day residency presented by the University of Alabama at Birmingham Department of Art and Art History.
During Ferrandi’s UAB residency from March 11-20, she will work with students, faculty, staff and community members to create “The Prosthetics of Joy,” commissioned by the DAAH. “The Prosthetics of Joy” is a multimedia project based on a photographic image found by the artist on Facebook. The performance will be a one-act play in which the 40 or so players, the set, and the costumes are indivisible. The one-night-only performance will take place at 6 p.m. Thursday, March 20, in the new UAB Abroms-Engel Institute for the Visual Arts, 1221 10th Ave. South.
The performance will then become part of the resulting exhibition and will feature sculpture, photography, video and drawings. “The Prosthetics of Joy” will be on exhibition from March 19-April 18, at the AEIVA. An opening reception will be held from 5-7:30 p.m. Friday, March 21. The performance, exhibition and reception are all free and open to the public.
The department is excited to host this project that will unfold during Ferrandi’s residency at the AEIVA, transforming the artist’s vision through production and the presentation of performance and installation. The project will connect strangers and question how we perceive the photographic moment, says Lauren Lake, MFA, chair of the UAB DAAH.
“We could not be more thrilled to present George Ferrandi for the Department of Art and Art History’s first residency in our new home,” Lake said. “George’s past work and performances and installations are poetic interpretations of our everyday lives, and I have no doubt that ‘The Prosthetics of Joy’ will pull on your soul a bit and leave you reconsidering life’s tender and most genuine moments.”
Ferrandi is an American artist whose work responds to the specifics of a site, audience or situation, employing whatever medium is best suited for the task. Based in Brooklyn, N.Y., Ferrandi made news recently with her “daring” site-specific performance piece, “it felt like i knew you,” which tests the limits of a subway car’s shared spaces.
She is the director of Wayfarers Studio Program and Gallery in Bushwick, and was the founding member of the touring performance project “Cloud Seeding: Circus of the Performative Object.” Her work has been performed and/or exhibited around the country, including at Abrons Arts Center in New York, the Kitchen in New York, Cinders Gallery in Brooklyn, the McKinney Contemporary in Dallas, the Wexner Center in Columbus, the University of California at San Diego, the Harn Museum in Gainesville, Fla., and Fleisher Art Memorial in Philadelphia. Ferrandi has received grants from the Franklin Furnace Fundwinners for Performance Art, the Mid Atlantic Arts Council and the RISD Part-time Faculty Association. She teaches sculpture and performance art periodically at the Rhode Island School of Design and at Virginia Commonwealth University, and also specializes in the restoration of statues of saints for churches.
The AEIVA is open to the public 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Monday-Friday and 12-6 p.m. Saturday. It is closed Sundays and holidays. For more information, contact John Fields or Jared Ragland, or visit the UAB Department of Art and Art History online or the AEIVA online.