Maren Hassinger: Lives

Abstract

Gettysburg College’s Schmucker Art Gallery is pleased to present Maren Hassinger: Lives, an exhibition of the artist’s films, sculptures, and installations held in conjunction with the Central Pennsylvania Consortium Africana Studies Conference, “Public Health, Human Prosperity, and Justice: Public Policy in the African Diaspora,” and co-sponsored by the Eisenhower Institute in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania February 26 and 27, 2010. Hassinger’s work provides a contemplative perspective on complicated issues of nature, culture and identity in relation to broader themes of race, gender, as well as politics, and social policy. Ethereal and evocative installations of branches, plastic bags, and twisted newspapers powerfully reveal the tenuous intersection of the mass-produced and the organic. Complimenting the coiled strands, circular forms, and ascending paths of Hassinger’s sculptures are projections and films that similarly examine notions of circularity and biological (or natural) connectivity, in addition to linearity and lineage. These installations compellingly address the various complexities of lives: personal and public identities, Hassinger’s autobiographical lineage, and the legacies of broader African-American experiences. [excerpt]https://cupola.gettysburg.edu/artcatalogs/1001/thumbnail.jp