Bernheim Arboretum and Research Forest is pleased to announce the recipients of the 2013-2014 Bernheim Artist in Residence Program, a central aspect of its Arts in Nature program. Although each artist is varied in their approach to their art making practice, each utilizes an aspect of nature as a primary reference in their work.
The three artists selected for the 2013-2014 year are Mei-ling Hom, who resides in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Firat Erdim who resides in Izmir, Turkey and Sévyrna Lupien who resides in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada.
Mei-ling Hom will live at Bernheim for two months the fall of 2013 and two months in the spring of 2014 in order to create a sculptural landscape of inoculated straw sculptures. These pieces use mushroom mycelia as examples of the possibilities that mycorestoration offer depleted soils and polluted waters. Mei-ling intends to use mycorestoration methods utilizing local natural materials (straw and wood chips) to create an artistic landscape, which will be both inspiring in its remediation properties, and in its visual beauty. The artist hopes to integrate proven mycorrhizal solutions with design elegance and visual wonder in order to engage the Bernheim audience in a respectful and joyful appreciation of the natural landscape.
Mei-ling Hom holds a M.F.A. from New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University, and a B.A. from Kirkland College, Clinton, New York. She has been awarded grants and fellowships from the Pew Fellowships in the Arts, Fulbright Fellowship for Visual Arts Research in South Korea, The Joan Mitchell Foundation – Visual Arts Grant, the Pritzker Foundation Endowed Fellowship and The Leeway Foundation. She shows internationally and has major commissioned pieces at the international airports in Philadelphia and Raleigh Durham, North Carolina.
Firat Erdim will work and reside at Bernheim from approximately March 15th, to June 15th, 2014. Pieces of salvaged timber have been the artist’s primary material while architectural construction is a primary reference. Erdim is interested in learning from the Bernheim staff about the rituals of care and maintenance that take place within Bernheim’s arboretum and research forest. During his residency the artist will create a series of drawings, sculptures and performances that utilize the research forest as his primary spacial orientation. He is also interested in the constructed space of the forest as a mirror to the constructed space of the city.
Firat Erdim received his MA in Architecture from the University of Virginia in 2007 and his BA in Architecture in 2001 from The Cooper Union. He has shown his work in numerous galleries and museums through out Turkey and in Chicago, San Francisco and Charlottesville in the United States. He is currently teaching Fine Arts and Design at the Izmir University of Economics in Izmir, Turkey.
Sévyrna Lupien will live at Bernheim from early April 2014 through the end of May 2014. She plans to continue to work on a project called Imaginary Landscapes; Guesses, Occupations and Other Curiosities while at Bernheim. Her project will reflect on the notion of trace and movement that is associated with the concept of land art and art in situ. She allows the immediate environment and spaces to inform her work as she creates her site-specific installations and will create a studio space on site adjacent to her works in progress. She will photograph each piece in process and its natural evolution and deconstruction.
Sévyrna Lupien is completing her M.F.A. at Laval University in Quebec where she earned her BFA in Fine Arts and New Media. She has created numerous installations and has participated in group exhibitions and a number of residencies, events and art projects in Quebec.