The exhibition runs Friday, January 31 -- Sunday, March 16, 2003 in MICA's Decker Gallery Opening Reception Thursday, February 6, 2003, 5 -- 8 p.m.
A new sound and video installation by the artist Ann Fessler, Everlasting, premieres at Maryland Institute College of Art's Decker Gallery from January 31 -- March 16, 2003, with an opening reception on Thursday, February 6, from 5 -- 8 p.m.. The new work will be installed alongside the artist's piece Close to Home, which premiered at Brown University's Bell Gallery in 2001. These companion works continue an ongoing series of innovative multi-media installations by this ground-breaking artist focusing on issues related to adoption and drawing upon her own experiences as an adoptee. The MICA exhibition was developed in collaboration with the College's Exhibition Development Seminar, a unique multi-semester course that engages undergraduate, graduate, and continuing studies students in every aspect of the development and installation of a major exhibition.
Everlasting began with an oral history project, in which Ann Fessler collected the personal narratives of women who had surrendered children for adoption from the Baltimore/Washington, D.C. region in the period from World War II (1945) through Roe v. Wade (1973). Everlasting weaves these voices into an audio tapestry that reveals the unheard voices of those who are often omitted from stories of adoption. In this exhibition, the women who have allowed themselves to be interviewed all gave birth to "illegitimate" children at ages ranging from 15 to 32 years old. Some felt placing their baby in an adoptive home was the best option, while others were coerced into surrendering their children. One mother was asked to sign her rights away while still in the recovery room, groggy from childbirth. Another was told the next day that adoptive parents had already taken her child home and it was too late to change her mind, despite laws to the contrary. During their lifetime, these women have seen tremendous changes in the acceptance of single parenthood. Many went on to raise other children as a single parent.
Earlier work by Fessler drew on her own experiences to provide glimpses into the experiences of adoptees: Genetics Lesson (1990), which was developed during a sabbatical while Fessler was on the faculty of MICA; and Close to Home (2001). Other work focused on the experiences of adopting families: Ex/Changing Families: Two Stories of Adoption (1997); and the associated video focusing on her parents, Cliff and Hazel. Having discovered that there was little public documentation of the complex histories of "unwed mothers," Fessler was interested in exploring what is unknown about the experiences of the biological mothers of adopted children.
The exhibition addresses many widely held myths about the experiences of these women -- that they gave up their children willingly, for example, and that the "birth mother" quickly forgot the surrendered child and "went on with her life." The audio installation is entered through a passageway where visitors can view video culled from educational and newsreel films of the 1940s, '50s, and '60s, which underscore the misinformation provided to young people about sex during this period, and underscores the cultural attitudes of the time about young women who got themselves "in trouble." A web site developed in association with the exhibition (www.mica.edu/everlasting) provides extended texts from the oral history interviews.
Presented in conjunction with Everlasting is the reconfigured 2001 work, Close to Home, which combines a physical installation (corn cribs and feed corn) that provides the physical sights and smells of the rural Midwest of Fessler's childhood, with audio and video by the artist. The nine-minute film Along the Pale Blue River is the centerpiece of the installation, which also features contemporary video shot by the artist and black-and-white archival footage from the period in question. The installation provides many angles from which the viewer can experience the artist's search for information about the woman who gave birth to her.
The more than 30 students in MICA's Exhibition Development Seminar, led by Curator-in-Residence George Ciscle, participated in every aspect of this exhibition's development -- the oral history project, design of the exhibition, publicity, publications, writing of wall and catalog text, exhibition installation, and the planning and execution of associated public and educational programming. Everlasting is the sixth major exhibition project for this class, which provides an unusually deep professional development experience for MICA students.
Ann Fessler is an artist who is particularly open to the collaborative and community-oriented approach to exhibition development espoused by Ciscle and the class he teaches at MICA, one of the nation's top art colleges. Her work has often reached beyond the gallery to engage audiences and solicit feedback and participation. As a faculty member in MICA's photography department from 1982 through 1993, she participated in major exhibitions presented by The Walters Art Gallery (now Walters Art Museum), The Contemporary Museum in Baltimore, and the Washington Project for the Arts. Exploring the possibilities of installation and multi-media, and expanding expectations for these approaches to presenting a visual idea, Fessler often produces videos and artist's books in conjunction with her installations, to allow the work to have a life beyond the gallery and to present multiple approaches to the same concepts.
Much of Fessler's work questions and confronts myths surrounding gender stereotypes and the role of women in our society. An adopted child raised by a mother who was also adopted, Fessler did not begin to create work centering on her experience of adoption until 1990, when she presented Genetics Lesson in MICA's Sabbatical Exhibition. Interestingly, the exhibition of Everlasting at MICA will mark the beginning of a series of site-specific installations and films to be born out of interviews in other states and regions. In addition, the Schlesinger Library at Harvard University, which draws thousands of researchers each year to study the history of women in the United States, will house the transcripts that Fessler has collected for use in Everlasting.
The exhibition is free and open to the public. Gallery hours are Monday through Saturday, 10 a.m. -- 5 p.m.; Sunday, noon -- 5 p.m. (closed major holidays). For more information about exhibitions at MICA, visit the College's web site and online events calendar at www.mica.edu or call 410-225-2300. Developed by the Exhibition Development Seminar web design team, the Everlasting exhibition web site (http://www.mica.edu/everlasting) will be continually updated to incorporate information about ongoing programming associated with the exhibition, and to engage a larger audience in a meaningful dialogue about the issues raised by this exhibition.
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