artist in residence

Sangi Ravichandran + Rachel Wallis

Fall 2021

Sangi Ravichandran and Rachel Wallis

While in residency Sangi Ravichandran and Rachel Wallis worked with the community to create a textile based project titled Manchester, Manchester, Manchester. They used cotton, wool, and silk, as well as dyes native to the US, England, and India to discuss the shared history between cities. Throughout multiple dying and weaving workshops, they facilitated conversations about where fabric comes from, who produces it, and what it means for a place to base their economy on textiles, which are often complicated by trade, labor, colonialism, slavery, and industrialization. Manchester, like its namesake in England, was deeply entwined in this complex history – a site of investment and economic growth at one historical moment, and then abandonment and decay in another. Across oceans, they can see echoes of these same systems at play in the textile cities of India, like Coimbatore, sometimes referred to as the Manchester of India.

 

About the artists:

Sangi Ravichandran, is a queer immigrant activist-scholar, artist, art therapist and healing practitioner. She was born and raised in a textile city in India and moved to Chicago in 2007 to pursue fine arts, where she rediscovered her love for fiber and colors. She worked as an anti-violence community organizer and arts-based therapist for several years in Chicago before returning to the academy to pursue her doctoral education. Her art and research lie at the intersections of investigating law, criminalization, surveillance and counterinsurgency through a prison and military abolitionist lens. Through her art, research, teaching and organizing practice, she hopes to collectively build a world that is geared towards gender and racial justice.

Rachel Wallis, MA, is a community taught crafter, artist, and activist. Her work focuses on collaborative quilting projects addressing issues of race and social justice. Past projects have included Gone But Not Forgotten, a community quilting process creating a memorial quilt for individuals killed by the Chicago Police Department, and Inheritance: Quilting Across Prison Walls, a project using quilts to help rebuild relationships divided by incarceration. Rachel was also the inaugural Project Nia artist in residence 2020-2021.

artist in residence

Our Artist-in-Residence (AIR) program invites artists to live and work at the museum. While in residence, artists consider the collection and community, and refresh our perspectives on the role of the museum. The program is central to the Currier Museum’s mission of connecting our audiences with art and creative thinking, whether of the past or the future. We hope to learn from our visiting artists – and be surprised by their perspectives.

Artists working in all media participate in the AIR program, which has three main components: 1) an open call to support emerging artists making socially engaged art; 2) an invitational through which artists are selected to develop special projects, commissions, or exhibitions; and 3) artist-led, community-centered public art projects in the city of Nashua, NH.

 

Open Call for Artist in Residence Applications

Our annual open call is currently live from October 1 – December 1, 2022. Artists who share the museum’s goal of positively impacting communities through the transformative power of art are encouraged to apply to this residency.

Learn More

past exhibitions

Archived material on past exhibitions can be explored further here, and recent past exhibition catalogues are available through the museum shop.