Author: Sarah E Webb

ARCHIVING ACTIVISM: A CONVERSATION WITH MONICA SHEETS

Sarah E Webb

Monica Sheets is a multidisciplinary artist whose work explores ideas of participation, authority, and the possibility of civil engagement beyond traditional forms of social activism. Through organizing events, developing archives, and conducting oral histories, she envisions spaces that welcome participants who might not identify as activists yet long to have a voice in the politics impacting their lives.  Sheets’ artistic practice is a product of the places she has called home—from her upbringing in the Rust Belt city of Toledo, OH, to years spent as an expatriate living in the…

HOLDING AND BEING HELD: A CONVERSATION WITH ANNE LEIGHTON MASSONI

Sarah E Webb

Anne Leighton Massoni while traveling in Puglia, Italy 2021 Anne Leighton Massoni has a theory: she believes everyone’s fifth birthday looks practically the same photographically, yet when it’s our fifth birthday, the images conjure the unique experience of memory and time.  Her theory is a tangible thread, one she pulls throughout her practice. As a maker and a storyteller, Massoni explores the space between truth and fiction, the place between revealing and holding secret. Using created images in conjunction with found imagery, Massoni reimagines stories we experience yet cannot express.…

TELL ME HOW IT ENDS: AN INTERVIEW WITH MARNI SHINDELMAN

Sarah E Webb

I first met Marni Shindelman in 2002, when we were new faculty at the University of Rochester, Department of Art and Art History, and I have been honored to observe the evolution of her work ever since. Marni’s practice investigates the data tracks we amass through networked communication, locating the invisible to actual sites, anchoring the ephemeral in photographs. Since 2007 she has primarily exhibited and created work in collaboration with Nate Larson but recently embarked upon a new solo project, Restore the Night Sky, work as personal as it…