Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.

Mirages and Archived Landscapes

Sarah Nance, Assistant Professor of Integrated Practice (Binghamton University, SUNY)

Nance creates shrouds for “archived” landscapes—environments, such as former inland seas, that are now observable only through fossil records, artifacts, or recorded data. These shrouds vary from handworked textiles to experimental vocal performances and, when installed on site, become surface layers that point to complex records of deep time. In her most recent work, Nance focuses on the complex visual experience of shininess and its ability to disorient and obscure. She considers the mirage in particular, as a phenomenon that creates slippages in a landscape’s boundaries in time and space.

The program is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and the Department of Art & Art History. The program is also part of the Clarke Forum annual theme, Thought Experiments.

This lecture complements an exhibition of Nance’s artwork on display from October 14 through November 12, 2025, at Dickinson’s Goodyear Gallery.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Courtesy of the Artist

Sarah Nance is an interdisciplinary artist based in installation and fiber. She explores entanglements of geologic processes and human experience in archived, constructed, and speculative terrains. Her time spent living in the geologies of Oregon, Iceland, eastern Canada, and the Driftless Area of the Midwest has been significant in the development of her research, much of which continues to be based in these regions. Nance is currently assistant professor of integrated practice in the Harpur College of Arts and Sciences at SUNY-Binghamton in New York. She has previously 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 at venues in China, France, Canada, Iceland, South Korea, Germany, and Italy, as well as across the U.S.