Danielle Lasker

The Future of Our Plans: SAIC Graduate Class of 2020

Graduates

The Future of Our Plans: SAIC Graduate Class of 2020

Master of Fine Arts in Studio, Fiber and Material Studies

d.lasker.94@gmail.com

Danielle Lasker received their Masters of Fine Arts from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in the Fiber and Material Studies department in 2020. They have an interdisciplinary art practice centered around weaving and various craft practices. During quarantine they have begun using video as a means of synthesizing what cancelled events could have been like by acting out what they would have likely been doing based on memories of similar events. The absurdist act of performing these events is both cathartic and saddening. Accompanying one of these videos are photos of incomplete works which were interrupted during their making processes due to quarantine.

Reception of One, 2020, Video, 2:15 mins.

Reception of One was filmed, edited, and posted online on Friday, April 24, 2020. The video depicts the artist acting out some of what they probably would have done that evening if the School of the Art Institute of Chicago’s Master of Fine Art exhibition had been able to open to the public as originally scheduled prior to COVID related event cancellations. The video serves as one part catharsis and one part comedy. Viewers are invited to film their own imaginary event-that-never-was and share it on Instagram.

Stop and Go, 2020, Digital collage, 15 x 15 in.

Stop and Go is a digital collage of a partially completed woven work that was intended to be exhibited at the SAIC MFA show. The work was still in progress when the SAIC campus buildings were closed, but there was a desire to continue working with the woven sign in some form. From progress snapshots taken during the sign’s construction, this collage was made. Each image builds on top of the previous one, overlapping till the oldest layers become a solid bedrock of visual memory on which the rest of the woven layers rest.

Paused, 2020, Finishing nails, cotton, polyester, and acrylic yarn, 30 x 30 in.

Paused is a miniature companion piece to the large woven sign depicted in Stop and Go. The work has been left incomplete, being both incompletely woven and unembellished. The piece exists as a reminder that incompleteness is not always a failure, rather an unavoidable force of nature much like a rip tide which cannot be avoided, but must be followed out before movement can be made again. The incompleteness of the STOP sign is itself an oddly poetic thing.

Back to group

More graduates in this group