Catalyst Presents: The Artist is Present- Jenny Yurshansky

“The Artist is Present” is a special series which is being hosted under the Catalyst: A Creative Industries Podcast of the Center for Creative and Cultural Industries at Chapman University.  “The Artis is Present” was developed under the direction of the Phyllis and Ross Escalette Permanent Collection of Art’s Director, Fiona Shen, and Registrar, Jessica Bocinski, so that a wider audience would have the opportunity to hear directly from the artists in the Escalette Collection at the University. This first episode of this series features Jenny Yurshansky, an artist whose practice is deeply informed by being a refugee. Using material and critical parameters defined by a conceptual and research-based approach, she explores the trauma of displacement by interrogating notions of belonging and otherness through site, historical traces and social constructions, often formally manifested as absence, loss or erasure. Her work includes writing and working with a variety of materials such as cast, slumped, and found glass, charred steel, MDF manipulated to simulate antique display cases, embroidered textiles, hand-cut paper silhouettes of plants, laser etched granite and photographic installations.

Episode Host: Even Johnson Episode Interviewer: Henry Littleworth