To celebrate the culmination of their six-month residency in the Museum’s Artist Studios, artists Luam Melake, Heechan Kim, and MAD Artist Fellow Rachelle Dang will each speak about their respective practices. Following the talks, visitors will have the opportunity to meet the artists and see their work created at MAD.

ASL interpretation will be provided for this program. Please email education@madmuseum.org to reserve your ticket.

SCHEDULE

• 6:00-6:30 pm: welcome reception on Floor 7
• 6:30-7:00 pm: artist talks on Floor 7
• 7:00-8:00 pm: open studios on Floor 6

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Rachelle Dang, MAD’s Artist Fellow and a 2021 Burke Prize Finalist, combines sculpture and installation to comment on colonialism’s lasting impact on the natural environment. By bringing together historical material, botanical research, personal memories, and poetic allusion, she encourages audiences to deconstruct the past and reimagine the future. Dang was born in Honolulu and lives in Brooklyn.

Heechan Kim applies traditional craft techniques in new contexts to reimagine and explore outcomes, and challenge craft’s visual potential. During his residency at MAD, Kim has continued his practice of reimagining traditional weaving practices using new materials. Kim is currently an adjunct faculty member of Parsons School of Design and the City College of New York. He received an MFA in woodworking and furniture design from Rochester Institute of Technology and a BFA in metal arts and jewelry from Seoul National University.

Luam Melake creates handwoven sculptures and furniture using innovative material combinations that reference her interdisciplinary interests in craft, industrial design, fine art, and architecture. Melake’s handwoven sculptures explore how empathy can be experienced with objects that convey abstract emotional concepts through their material compositions. During her residency at MAD, Melake has worked on a series of mixed-media weavings that continue her exploration of materiality as a language for communicating emotion. Melake received her BA from the University of California, Berkeley. She is a research fellow at Parsons School of Design.