getting to know the graduates
Graduating Student: Maiyan Linane (W 22)
I started my process paper by reflecting upon my coming of age at the time of the internet and started to ask questions regarding experiences that happened to myself and my friends online. Why language and law had not been provided to us yet?
In order to have a foundational approach to my questions, I explored artists Cecile B. Evans and Hito Steyerl. I did research regarding cyber-feminism and looked to the work of Melissa Febos. I continued a series of investigations by asking: when do our bodies not become our own? And how can one show the omnipresence of something invisible?
How did VCFA change your approach to thinking about your studio practice and your community at home?
It changed everything. VCFA has definitely impacted how I see research as vital in my studio practice. In terms of my community, I have critically examined what is considered “normal.” Also, how I look at myself and why I have not completely divested from structures that I know are not good for me or others.
I have learned to ask myself how I continue to operate in these structures and where I can rethink and relearn new ways of navigating them. As for my community, I engaged my immediate political surroundings and use strategy to engage them in my art practice, as well as bringing the exhibition to them, installing it at the basement of the bar where I work.
What was on your play list during your time at VCFA?
Kat Hasty – Where the Wildflowers Lay
Colby Acuff – If I Were the Devil
Who are your favorite protagonists in fiction?
What, or who, should you like to be – if not yourself?
I would be a Marabunta
Where do you live?
Alumnx: Judy Walgren (W 16)
Nico Lima (W 22)