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On Art: Grief Guanyin and the Elephants
April 15, 2016 @ 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Mary Ting will discuss her artwork in relationship to her family history, Chinese culture and the current wildlife crisis. Mary will highlight artworks that weave family stories of 1930/40s Nanjing, purges during the Cultural Revolution, field research in the Yellow River Plateau, and her mother’s passing. Along the way she will re-examine traditional symbols, literary metaphors and talk about grief, social status, wonder cabinet collections, Chinese consumers, and endangered animals.
This highly personal lecture will provide the audience with a window to Mary Ting’s artistic process, thinking and philosophy. Mary Ting‘s art includes a variety of formats including drawing, cut paper, installation, sculpture, photography, and community projects. Ongoing social practice projects include Daffodil Ashes on Grief and Art with the Rubin Museum of Art and Compassion: for the Animals Great & Small, on wildlife trafficking at the Chinese American Arts Council, 456 Gallery in NYC. Her work as an independent curator has included projects such as International Cultural Collaborations Tibet/NY artist project with the Trace Foundation, Paper Trails for the American Museum of Natural History, and a series of nine photography exhibitions for UNICEF-China in Beijing. Mary teaches at John Jay College in the art department and also the Sustainability and Environmental Justice Program, as well as the Transart Institute, NY/Berlin, MFA in Creative Practice. This lecture is a culmination of her varied experiences and would be of interest to a diverse audience.