Sept. 30, 2013: Internationally renowned artist and UAA grad Vlad Basarab presents 'The Archaeology of Memory'

Monday, Sept. 30, 7:15 p.m. Fine Arts Building, Room 117

Guest lecturer Vlad Basarab will discuss his current research dealing with "The Archaeology of Memory" project. This lecture is sponsored by the Kimura Gallery.

Background: Vlad Basarab is a multimedia, performance and video artist who explores the interconnections between ideology and history. He interrogates grand narratives and invites viewers to consider their subjective involvement in the process of knowledge and memory construction. Constantly revisiting the past and recreating it, Basarab frequently uses clay to design works that evoke bodily transformation and speak to the indelible traces left by historical events upon people's consciousness. Basarab was born in Bucharest, Romania, in 1977. In 1994, he co-founded the art group Palnia (The Funnel), with whom he staged various performances and exhibitions. He received a B.F.A. in ceramics from the University of Alaska Anchorage and an M.F.A. with an emphasis on electronic media from West Virginia University in Morgantown.

His works have been featured in numerous national and international exhibitions in the U.S., Romania, Hungary and Peru. Basarab has participated in Project Spaces, as part of the National Council of Education on the Ceramics Art, in Seattle, Wash. (2012), in the Decorative Arts Biennial in Bucharest, Romania (2012), Romanian Contemporary Ceramics Exhibition/Ceramica in Bucharest, Romania (2012), International Ceramics Biennale in Cluj, Romania (2013), Earth Moves: Shifts in Ceramic Art and Design in Arvada, Colo. (2013) and the Fifth International Artists' Book Exhibition at the King St. Stephen Museum in Székesfehérvár, Hungary (2013). Basarab also recently received a Fulbright grant to collaborate with historians, art critics and artists on research concerning the experience of Romanian intellectuals in communist prisons. More information about Vlad Basarab's practice can be found at basarab-art.com.

Basarab on the project: "The Archaeology of Memory" has been influenced by the loss of collective culture and memory. Memory is our only link to the past. In a fast-moving society with plenty of distractions, in a world of selfishness and individualism, we have forgotten to remember. The past is our identity, our heritage. My work is an attempt to make my audience link the present to the past through questioning traditional methods of preserving and transforming collective memory. By referencing historic attempts at cultural effacement with political, ideological and religious motivations, I comment upon the importance of preserving memory. The time-based works, presented both in real time as installation, performance and video, as well as in a time-lapse video, address different forms of memory loss.

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