hip – hip!

getting to know the graduates

Graduating Student: Julie Krishnaswami (S 21)

I began my final Semester researching how female nominees speak before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee (SJC). Treating the SJC as an employer, my work involved an intense amount of research into SJC hearings to understand labor norms that presently exist in the form of threads to the recent past. I created an archive to organize my sources and materials and managed these items to be converted to art materials. As I dug into these materials, I found language—words, phrases, mannerisms, grammar—an effective vehicle for understanding gendered history, labor norms, power rituals, and other practices that undergird employment relationships and dynamics. And this language continues to permeate everyday speech. It has the power to even obscure and render speakers and subjects invisible. As a result, language and its organization became my form, material, and content. Thus, I have created multiple lists of significant words and concepts that I plan to exhibit.

In my process paper, I discuss how translation theories inform my performance-based work. I also analyze specific art pieces for insights into my practice.

Who, or what is your work in conversation with?

Group Material – Doug Ashford & Julie Ault

and there are so many others. . . .

How did VCFA change your approach to thinking about your studio practice and your community at home?

The program required me to prioritize working in the studio daily (not just when I needed to complete something or when I had an idea to execute). But time in the studio also includes reading, writing, looking at art, or just walking and thinking. Practically speaking, VCFA forced me to become organized in all aspects of my studio practice. I have had to develop systems to capture ideas, artists and works of note, and other research materials.

My studio practice has become much more rigorous, meaning that the connections between my medium, form, and content have sharpened, and I think I now understand how these elements operate to express an idea through a visual language.

I have discovered that my thinking is linked to moving my hands or body. My thinking seems to happen when I am in the early stages of making, or as my A-M this Semester noted, “letting loose.”

As for my community, New Haven has a growing art community, where social practice is at the forefront. I am excited to get more involved in the community once my MFA is completed.

Who were your Artist-Mentors?

Julie Krishnaswami 2021

What was on your play list during your time at VCFA?

I alternate between streaming a television series or C-SPAN in the background (helpful for tedious work) and playing music (helpful for less tedious work). When I’m writing, however, I prefer silence.

First Semester – music: What a Time to Be Alive, Superchunk

Second Semester – series: The Americans

Third Semester – sitcom: Kim’s Convenience

Fourth Semester – sitcom: Arrested Development / music: Big Thief (a band I recently discovered)

Who are your favorite protagonists in fiction?

Circe in the adaptation of the Greek myth, Circe by Madeline Miller

Hobby, the antique dealer, in The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

Renee, the super, in The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery