Erin Schalk – SAIC Low Res 2017

For three years, I lived and worked in Japan where I functioned as a membrane in interactions between local communities and the world of expatriates and foreigners. Today, as an artist and educator who works with underprivileged youth, I continue to be a border-traverser who moves through geographic and cultural, as well as regional and ideological, separations. My practice seeks to provide empathic spaces which are sensitive to each individual’s unique character and life experiences and searches for aspects of the human experience which promote solidarity and healing. Through video, poetry, performance and painting, I examine interculturality, an external environment’s impact on a person’s internal world, and the communicative power of time, transition and silence. Silence asks the viewer to consider what truly is absent, to delve deeper into what cannot be immediately seen, and to examine and question the cultural templates that have been imprinted on each of us.