Creatives-in-Residence

The Harn Museum of Art works with students as Creatives-in-Residence through the Poets-in-Residence, Choreographer-in-Residence, and Composer-in-Residence programs.


Harn Poets-in-Residence

Since 2010, the Asian art department has partnered with UF professor emerita and noted American poet Debora Greger for its Poet-in-Residence Program. During this time, they have hosted interns of various academic disciplines and experience, ranging from art history through English to creative writing and law. One of the most rewarding experiences for the participants has been time spent with in Asian art storage during object studies. Viewings, scheduled several times a semester, feature objects that will be included in the upcoming exhibitions and on view in the galleries. The poets then create pieces vividly describing a single object, contemplate a series of prints in an exhibition, and experiment with various poetry forms developed in Asia.


During the fall semester of 2014, the artist Akiyama Yō visited the Harn Museum and gave a workshop at the School of Art + Art History – which the poets-in-residence attended. Akiyama's major concerns revolve around the physical properties of clay as a material and his exploration, through the manipulation of his medium, of the tension between surface and form, between the ordered and the organic. The inspiration for the title Pli Selon Pli (Fold upon Fold) came from Pierre Boulez’s classical composition of the same name, which in turn was informed by a poem by the French symbolist poet Stéphane Mallarmé. The evolution of the creative process surrounding this monumental ceramic sculpture now includes original work by the Harn creatives-in-residence.


Harn Choreographers-in-Residence

The Center for World Arts - Harn Museum of Art Choreographer-in-Residence, a student intern, develops short gallery dances for public performance in the museum during Family Days and Museum Nights, and coordinates between the Harn and Swamp Dance Fest!


Harn Composers-in-Residence

Building on the Poets-in-Residence Program, the Composers-in-Residence Program partners with UF School of Music graduate composition students who, through object study with curators and independent research, choose objects from the museum collection to inspire new music works that are performed in the galleries.


Robert Seaback, the first Composer-in-Residence, chose to create his work plis de temps (2017-18, 4 channel audio) or “time folds” as a sound installation for the Central Gallery of the David A Cofrin Asian Art Wing, taking as a point of departure the ceramic sculpture Pli Selon Pli by Akiyama Yō that you see before you. Through various digital signal processes, sound sources recorded by Seaback (which include ocean waves, thunderstorms, and various instruments) are deconstructed and reassembled. In this way, sound becomes a malleable material which carries links to its own origins despite various distortions and mutations, much like the clay in Akiyama’s sculptures.


You can listen to plis de temps and all the other Composer-in-Residence projects at SoundSpot by tapping the button below.


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