NCUR 2006: University of North Carolina at Asheville: April 6-8, 2006

Mel Chin

Mel Chin's art, which is both analytical and poetic, evades easy classification. Chin is known for the broad range of approaches in his art, including works that require multi-disciplinary, collaborative teamwork and works that conjoin cross-cultural aesthetics with complex ideas. Chin's politically engaged projects also challenge the idea of the artist as the exclusive creative force behind an artwork. "In some instances, the survival of my own ideas may not be as important as a condition I might create for others' ideas to be realized," says Chin.

He continues to develop long-term works such as Revival Field (1989-ongoing), a project that has been a pioneer in the field of "green remediation." It currently is active in Stuttgart Germany. The project features dramatic advancements in the use of plants to remove toxic, heavy metals from the soil. This project is consistent with a conceptual philosophy, which emphasizes the practice of art to include sculpting and bridging the natural and social ecology.

From 1995-1998, he organized ninety people to produce In the Name of the Place a conceptual public art project conducted on prime-time television. This work debuted at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, CA, and concluded with an auction at Sotheby's with all proceeds donated to create educational scholarships.

In KNOWMAD, Chin worked with software engineers to create a video game based on rug patterns of nomadic peoples facing persecution. In 1998, he began working as a core advisor with the Nashville Cultural Arts Project in Tennessee with a focus on urban redevelopment. There he is currently developing an International Center for Living Watersheds that includes a floatilla of state-of-the-art scientific/educational barges. He is the lead artist for the first joint university/public library in the United States in San Jose, California, which will be completed in 2005. Chin is one of 16 artists included in the PBS Series Art of the 21st Century aired in the Fall of 2001.

Recent projects include: REVERB A commissioned project (with Peter Walker) for the Univ. of Texas at Austin in which "found landscapes" are united on the University campus and connected to their point of origin through live sound. CLUSTER Jewelry design based on the wounds of war in order to prompt questions of worth, cost and origins. ROPE of DREAMS A printmaking project that looks at the notion of equality of dreams in an age of disparity. S.O.S.: MOMENT In association with producers of Art 21, a video documentary that maximizes the political voice of Bronx, NY citizens through an extended moment of silence, complete with streaming transcription of individual thoughts and a soundtrack of individual heartbeats.

Mel Chin continues to exhibit extensively in the United States and Europe, including one-man exhibitions at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC, the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN, the Menil Collection, Houston, TX, Storefront for Art and Architecture, New York, and the Fabric Workshop, Philadelphia, PA. Projects and public commissions have been installed at diverse sites such as New York City's Central Park, Pig's Eye Landfill in St. Paul, Floriadepark in rural Netherlands, Eco Tec International in Corsica, Pittsburgh's Three Rivers Arts Festival; New York Times Magazine, West Queens High School. Group show venues have included: Fifth Biennial of Havana; Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona; K-21 Museum, Dusseldorf; Kwangju Biennale, Korea; Smithsonian Museum, D.C.; Museum Of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; the Whitney Museum of American Art, P.S. 1, and Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Chin received a B.A. from Peabody College in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1975. From 1994 to 1997, he held the Lamar Dodd Professorial Chair of Art at the University of Georgia. In 1998, he was Consulting Professor at Stanford University and taught the following year at Cooper Union. Over the last two years, he has been the Paula and Edwin Sidman Fellow in The Arts at University of Michigan's Institute for the Humanities and the Roman J. Witt Visiting Professor in its School of Art and Design. He is the recipient of many awards and grants including a Cal Arts/Alpert Award, a Rockefeller Foundation grant, a Pollock/Krasner Foundation Fellowship, a Tiffany Foundation Award, a Joan Mitchell Award, an Engelhard Award, a Penny McCall Foundation Award, the Nancy Graves Foundation Award and several NEA Fellowships.

Mel Chin links:

http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/chin/index.html

Geraldine Richmond

Professor Geraldine Richmond holds Richard M. and Patricia H. Noyes Professorship in Chemistry at the University of Oregon. She received her Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley in 1980. She began here academic career as an assistant professor at Bryn Mawr College in 1980, moving to the University of Oregon to expand her research and teaching opportunities in 1985. Richmond is recognized for her fundamental studies of molecular processes at semiconductor, metal and liquid surfaces using state-of-the-art laser techniques. She has taught hundreds of hundreds of undergraduate students and continues to direct and mentor undergraduate, graduate and postdoctoral associates in her research group. Richmond has received numerous national and international awards honors for these studies.

Richmond is also known widely for her teaching and mentoring activities. She has been nationally recognized for developing innovative methods for teaching science literacy courses. Her extensive international efforts in recruiting and mentoring women in the sciences at all levels has been recognized with many awards including the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science and Engineering Mentoring from the White House. In 1998 Richmond founded an organization called “COACh” to foster the career success of women scientists in academia (http://coach.uoregon.edu/). Over 700 women academic scientists from around the country have since participated in its highly effective programs.

Richmond has also served on numerous state and national science advisory committees with the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy and the National Academy of Sciences throughout her 25 years in academia. She served for five years as Chair of the Basic Energy Sciences Board of the Department of Energy (1998-2003). She has testified before the US Congress on issues of frontiers in science and women in science. She has been appointed by two different Oregon Governors to serve on the Board of Higher Education of the State of Oregon from 1999-2005. In addition to being a full member of this Board, she has served as Vice President (2004), and as a member of the Executive Committee (2004-2005), the Budget and Finance Committee (1999-2003) and Chair of the Chancellor’s Office Reorganization Committee (2004-2005).

More information on Professor Richmond including a pdf version of her vitae can be found on her website at: http://richmondscience.uoregon.edu/

Geri Richmond links:

Ilan Stavans

Ilan Stavans is Lewis-Sebring Professor in Latin American and Latino Culture and Five-College 40th Anniversary Professor at Amherst College. His books include The Hispanic Condition (1995), The Oxford Book of Jewish Stories (1998), On Borrowed Words (2001), Spanglish (2003), Dictionary Days and The Schocken Book of Modern Sephardic Literature (both 2005). His work has been translated into a dozen languages. Routledge published The Essential Ilan Stavans in 2000 and University of Wisconsin Press released Ilan Stavans: Eight Conversations, by Neal Sokol, in 2004. He is the host of the syndicated PBS show Conversations with Ilan Stavans and editor of the 4-volume Encyclopedia Latina (Scholastic) and the 3-volume Isaac Bashevis Singer: Collected Stories (Library of America).

Ilan Stavans links: