The Outbreak Project exhibition, the fine arts component of the wider collaborative Outbreak Project and Plunkett Poetry Festival, explores this year’s academic theme “Outbreak” through the visual arts and will be on display Tuesday, April 6, through Friday, April 30, at the Charles Danforth Gallery at the University of Maine at Augusta. The exhibition, selected by a jury of art leaders drawn from community arts organizations and the University of Maine System, draws from works submitted through an open submission process for the show.
The exhibition will circulate, conceptually and physically, around an installation and performance work by Maine artist and UMA lecturer Patricia Brace. Brace’s work, “Stage” will be a constructed plywood cubic space installed within the recessed center of the Danforth Gallery. With audiovisual equipment installed above, performance artists will choreograph and perform live-streamed dance-based works that respond to the restraint and connection of the physical form of “Stage” and, metaphorically, our moment of outbreak. Artists Patricia Brace, Liz Rhaney, Heather Lyon and Riley Watts will perform during a live-streamed performance April 9. Brace will perform again in the structure on April 30 during the Plunkett Poetry Festival, after which she and all the performers will participate in a live question and answer session via Zoom.
Exhibition Jurors
Ann Bartges
Ann Bartges is an Assistant Professor of Visual Art at University of Maine Farmington and the director of Emery Community Arts Center. She teaches courses in digital photography, video and 2D design. She has exhibited her artwork in the United States, Europe and Australia, and has been awarded artist residencies at Cite Internationale des Arts (Paris, FR), Institut fur Alles Mogliche (Berlin, DE) and Vermont Studio Center.
Serena Sanborn
Serena Sanborn is the Education and Outreach Coordinator for Waterville Creates. She loves to bring accessible art into her community and create connection to the planet through art and science. She is a Maine Master Naturalist and this year (2021) she was awarded the Maine Art Educator of the year award from the Maine Arts Education Association.
Marie Sugden
Marie Sugden is the Gallery Manager at the Harlow, a non-profit arts organization located in downtown Hallowell, Maine that has been celebrating art, artists, and community since 1963. Marie has over 10 years of arts administration/non-profit experience here in Maine and holds a Master of Fine Art in Arts Administration from Savannah College of Art and Design.
Ellen M. Taylor
Dr. Ellen M. Taylor is a professor of English at UMA, where she teaches literature, writing, and gender studies. Taylor’s creative work is primarily in poetry, and she has two published collections, Floating and Compass Rose. She is also a devotee of visual arts, and practices painting on her free time.
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