General admission and all programs are free for everyone.
Guest curator of “Being and Belonging” and University of South Alabama art historian Elizabeth S. Hawley, Ph. D., joins exhibiting artist Cara Despain to discuss “belonging” through the lens of American art.
About Our Guests
Elizabeth “Betsy” S. Hawley is an art historian, writer, and curator specializing in the art of the Americas and modern and contemporary art. Her research often focuses on 20th and 21st-century indigenous art, while also specializing in feminist/women’s art, activist art, ecocritical art, and the art of the American West. Hawley’s work has been supported by the Lunder Institute, SECAC Levin Award, Wolfsonian-FIU, and Pittsburgh Foundation. She is an assistant professor of art history at the University of South Alabama in Mobile.
Cara Despain is a multidisciplinary artist working in film, video, sound, sculpture, and installation to explore land use, climate change, and the impacts of frontierism on ecological and social systems. Her recent solo exhibitions include “Specter New Mexico” at New Mexico State University Art Museum (2023), “Specter” at the Bass Museum of Art (2022), and “In Memoriam: Carbon Paintings” at Kimball Art Center (2021). Despain’s work is held in major collections and featured in publications such as The Guardian and Sculpture Magazine. Her 3D object, “and the desert shall blossom as the rose,” is on view at The Jule through July 2.
