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Sarah Nance

Assistant Professor of Integrated Practice

Department of Art and Design

Background

Sarah Nance is an interdisciplinary artist based in installation and fiber. Her work in archived, constructed and speculative terrains blurs the separation between geologic processes and human experience.

Nance’s current project, shroud for an ancient sea, draws on “archived” landscapes such as subsurface meteor craters, fossilized reefs and exhumed mountain ranges. These sites are often observable only through fossil records, artifacts or recorded data. The site-responsive works in shroud for an ancient sea vary from expansive textiles to experimental vocal performances, becoming surface layers that point to complex records of deep time within the geo-anthropic landscape.

Prior to teaching at ý, Nance has held professorships in Interdisciplinary Art at SMU (Dallas, TX), Fibres & Material Practices at Concordia University (Montréal, QC), and Fiber at Virginia Commonwealth University (Richmond, VA). Her work has been performed and exhibited widely, including venues in China, France, Canada, Iceland, South Korea, Germany and Italy, as well as across the U.S.

Projects

  • La Tempête des Échos. . 2024.
  •   The Conversation. 19 Jan., 2024. 
  • . Transcript. 2023.


Education

  • MFA, University of Oregon
  • BA, Luther College

Research Interests

  • Fiber structures (beadwork, lacework, nets, knits, quilts)
  • Geotextiles
  • Site-responsive sculpture and installation, performance
  • The Anthropocene, climate change, exogeology

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