On Wednesday, November 7 at 7pm the Samek is hosting an interdisciplinary panel related to our fall exhibition, Dusk to Dusk. Panelists are American artist Matthew Day Jackson and Bucknell professors Harold Schweizer and John Hunter.
Professor Schweizer’s research interests include representations of suffering and post-modern literary theory; he recently published a book titled On Waiting (Routledge, 2008). Professor Hunter, in the comparative humanities department, is interested in the intersection of the arts and sciences and challenging how students approach cultural and historical contexts outside their own, often western, tradition. Both professors force you to confront your idea of the self and how you interact with the outside world. These tie in with several themes presented in Dusk to Dusk: the uncanny, the anthropomorphic, nature, and the sensations of ruin and isolation. Matthew Day Jackson’s piece High, Low, and In Between, featured in the show, is at first strikingly beautiful, but quickly becomes somewhat unsettling upon recognizing that the tree stump is set upon a base of four skulls. Rather than from an art critical or aesthetic perspective, the Bucknell faculty members will approach his work and the others in the show from their respective fields, perhaps exploring questions such as how and why do we react as we do to various art works, particularly those that make us uncomfortable.
The value of an interdisciplinary panel lies in the interaction among scholars who provide different perspectives on a common idea. The Dusk to Dusk panel will aim to provoke the consideration of the show in a new light.
Matthew Day Jackson, High, Low, and In Between, 2007.