Craft Works Symposium
Don’t You Forget About Me by Soojin Choi, 2023
Friday, November 3, 2023
Moore College of Art & Design
20th and the Parkway, Philadelphia
or Attend Virtually
Questions?
CraftNOW’s 2023 symposium and programming will center on the theme Craft Works. Through this theme, scholars, artists, and other speakers will explore diverse and changing ideas around work that permeate every aspect of the craft landscape. Made objects capture the work of bringing an idea into reality, so much so that we call them artworks. We’ll explore the work of making things, craft practice as labor, craft’s relationship to the needs of working people, and the power of craft to enact transformative work through communities. Craft Works will also pay tribute to the important contributions of gallerists Ruth and Rick Snyderman to Philadelphia’s craft community through their gallery, Snyderman Works.
Call for Emerging Scholars papers open now!
Working Lecture and Event Schedule
Confirmed Speakers Include:
Ruth and Rick Snyderman of the Snyderman Works Gallery, with Evan Snyderman of R and Company
Asiyah Kurtz, anthropologist and executive director of the Camden Fireworks
Shaping the Horizon: Collaboration and Korean Art in Philadelphia – with Elizabeth Agro and Hyunsoo Woo of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Jennifer Zwilling and Juree Kim of the Clay Studio, and Doug Bucci and Juh Yung Park of the Tyler School of Art.
Speaker Bios
Doug Bucci is an artist and educator in the field of jewelry who uses digital processes to explore and display biological systems and the effect of disease on the body. Computer-aided technologies enable him to view and simulate not only data, but also patterns and cell forms, which he transforms into meaningful, personal, and wearable art. Bucci views his digital process as one that allows for creative freedom unfound in traditional handmade methods. Bucci’s work is in the collections of the Windsor Castle, Berkshire, London; the Philadelphia Museum of Art; Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich; Newark Museum, New Jersey; Deutsche Goldschmiedehaus Hanau, Germany; Design Museo, Helsinki; and the State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia.
Juree Kim is a South Korean artist who has developed a mastery of clay sculpture over a 15 year career. She is internationally known for her Architectural Series where she uses water to artificially dissolve clay houses — a metaphor for time and the transience of the physical world. Kim also produces mixed media installations aimed to provide a multi-sensory experience. Her work has been exhibited all over the world including at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum, where it is now part of V&A’s collection. Kim lives and works in Seoul.
Emily Zilber is a curator, consultant, and educator whose work supports modern and contemporary art, craft, and design. As the Director of Curatorial Affairs and Strategic Partnerships at the Wharton Esherick Museum in Malvern, Pennsylvania, she facilitates conversations between contemporary artists and Esherick’s legacy. Zilber also maintains an independent consulting and writing practice, teaches at Tyler School of Art and Architecture, and guest curated exhibitions for institutions including the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum. For almost a decade, Zilber was the first Wornick Curator of Contemporary Decorative Arts at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, where she built an integrated curatorial program for craft and design within the museum’s contemporary art department.
Jennifer Zwilling is the Curator and Director of Artistic Programs at The Clay Studio in Philadelphia. As an active scholar in the craft world she has forged relationships across museum, academic and media boundaries. At The Clay Studio Zwilling administers the Resident Artist Program, The Clay Studio Collection, and the Guest Artist Program. She guides the Exhibition Program in concert with co-curators and the Exhibition Council, and has recently produced exhibition including Figuring Space and Between Horizons. As a member of the leadership team she shapes programming in support of The Clay Studio’s mission – to support artists and community through the ceramic arts.
The 47th Annual Philadelphia Museum of Art Craft Show returns to the Pennsylvania Convention Center November 3 – 5, 2023. Visit their website linked above and follow them on social media @PMACraftShow for more details.
Recent Symposium History
2022: Public | Private
CraftNOW’s 2022 symposium and programming centered on the theme Public | Private and explored continually evolving concepts of shared versus personal space. The keynote speaker was be Michael Lewis, architectural critic for the Wall Street Journal and author of Philadelphia Builds: Essays on Architecture, Frank Furness: Architecture and the Violent Mind, and City of Refuge. Other presenting institutions included Craft in America, The Center for Art in Wood, Wharton Esherick Museum, varying divisions of the Philadelphia Mummers Parade, and four emerging scholars.
2021: Environmental Effects
CraftNOW’s 2021 symposium Environmental Effects examined how communities and interiors shape our experiences, when sustainability issues are expressed through craft, and the greater impact of our contemporary material culture. Longer presentations were complimented by shorter Pecha Kucha style talks. Dr. Kelli Morgan was keynote having contributed the chapter Crafting Diversity in our recent publication Craft Capital: Philadelphia’s Cultures of Making.
2020: Cultures of Making
CraftNOW’s 2020 symposium Cultures of Making examines the many ways community, activism, research, and connection develop out of collaborative craft practices in the neighborhoods of Philadelphia to the Santa Clara Pueblo and beyond. Keynote speakers Vashti DuBois, Executive Director of The Colored Girls Museum in Philadelphia, and Hinda Mandell, editor of Crafting Dissent: Handicraft as Protest from the American Revolution to the Pussyhats, are central to each day’s conversation as we talk and think about the role of craft as a tool for provocation and exchange, especially in this heightened time of social unrest.