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DTSTAMP:20260324T142358
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260510T000000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260510T230000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:'Redefining the Crown' Art Exhibit
DESCRIPTION:\"Artist’s statement: For centuries\, hair has been critical to how human beings understand racial categories\, gender designations\, and class status. For Black women in particular\, hair has and continues to be tied to ethnic identity and a history of self-determination\, social justice\, and survival. Thus\, chemotherapy-induced hair loss is a devastating event for Black patients who are also more likely to be diagnosed with aggressive breast cancer subtypes necessitating chemotherapy\, carrying a 40% increased risk of dying from breast cancer.\n\nRedefining the ‘crown’: Approaching chemotherapy-induced alopecia among Black patients with breast cancer” started as a manuscript published in the scientific journal Cancer. But the work could not stop there. “Redefining the Crown” then metamorphosed into a photo essay project aimed at exploring the breast cancer journeys of six Black women and their experiences with hair loss due to chemotherapy. Though the project centers the experience of Black women\, we also acknowledge that breast cancer and chemotherapy-induced alopecia impact individuals of all genders. While the goal is to illuminate the unique stories of Black women who are affected uncommonly by this common disease\, the project is also a call to action regarding the disproportionate breast cancer-related mortality facing Black communities.\n\nIn this portraiture series\, photographer Tafari Stevenson-Howard captures the intimate journeys of Ann Chatman\, Tanisha Kennedy\, Felecia McDaniel\, Shantell Elaine McCoy\, Tamara Lynn Myles\, and Veleria Banks. This exhibition examines how these women have navigated the profound impact of hair loss caused by chemotherapy and how their sense of cultural pride and personal identity have been redefined amidst their battles with breast cancer.\n\nThese survivors have redefined their own crowns. More profound than the new hairstyles they don after hair loss are the invisible crowns that they choose to wear each day: gratitude\, faith\, and resilience. What do their words mean to you? Do they empower you to act?\n\nArtist’s name: Versha Pleasant\nWork Title: Image 2\nDate of creation: September 2024\nArtist’s statement: Photo by Tafari Stevenson-Howard\"
UID:146980-21900193@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/146980
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Michigan Union - 1st Floor - Opera Lounge
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260324T142358
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260511T000000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260511T230000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:'Redefining the Crown' Art Exhibit
DESCRIPTION:\"Artist’s statement: For centuries\, hair has been critical to how human beings understand racial categories\, gender designations\, and class status. For Black women in particular\, hair has and continues to be tied to ethnic identity and a history of self-determination\, social justice\, and survival. Thus\, chemotherapy-induced hair loss is a devastating event for Black patients who are also more likely to be diagnosed with aggressive breast cancer subtypes necessitating chemotherapy\, carrying a 40% increased risk of dying from breast cancer.\n\nRedefining the ‘crown’: Approaching chemotherapy-induced alopecia among Black patients with breast cancer” started as a manuscript published in the scientific journal Cancer. But the work could not stop there. “Redefining the Crown” then metamorphosed into a photo essay project aimed at exploring the breast cancer journeys of six Black women and their experiences with hair loss due to chemotherapy. Though the project centers the experience of Black women\, we also acknowledge that breast cancer and chemotherapy-induced alopecia impact individuals of all genders. While the goal is to illuminate the unique stories of Black women who are affected uncommonly by this common disease\, the project is also a call to action regarding the disproportionate breast cancer-related mortality facing Black communities.\n\nIn this portraiture series\, photographer Tafari Stevenson-Howard captures the intimate journeys of Ann Chatman\, Tanisha Kennedy\, Felecia McDaniel\, Shantell Elaine McCoy\, Tamara Lynn Myles\, and Veleria Banks. This exhibition examines how these women have navigated the profound impact of hair loss caused by chemotherapy and how their sense of cultural pride and personal identity have been redefined amidst their battles with breast cancer.\n\nThese survivors have redefined their own crowns. More profound than the new hairstyles they don after hair loss are the invisible crowns that they choose to wear each day: gratitude\, faith\, and resilience. What do their words mean to you? Do they empower you to act?\n\nArtist’s name: Versha Pleasant\nWork Title: Image 2\nDate of creation: September 2024\nArtist’s statement: Photo by Tafari Stevenson-Howard\"
UID:146980-21900194@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/146980
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Michigan Union - 1st Floor - Opera Lounge
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260421T085257
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260511T090000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260511T170000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Debbie Thompson Exhibition
DESCRIPTION:Debbie Thompson works predominantly in clay and draws inspiration from the natural world\, which she frequently references in her work. Her interest in ceramics began in high school when she took classes at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills\, Michigan. She later pursued her passion at the University of Michigan School of Art and Design\, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts. She also holds a Master of Arts from Eastern Michigan University and has completed post-graduate studio coursework at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago\, Maryland Institute College of Art\, Rhode Island School of Design\, and Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts.\n\nThompson taught visual art in the Ann Arbor Public Schools for 34 years and has also taught at the University of Michigan School of Education and Washtenaw Community College. She exhibits her work both locally and nationally and was a member of the Clay Gallery. She continues her practice in her home studio and at the Potters Guild in Ann Arbor\, Michigan. She is a member of the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts and the Michigan Ceramic Art Association. Her work is included in the permanent collection of the International Dinnerware Museum.\n\nThompson’s work has been inspired by the natural world since childhood. Although she initially studied biology in college\, she later shifted her focus to visual art. The textures\, colors\, and forms in her pieces are drawn directly from nature.\nSeeds—structures that have enabled plants to move through space and time for over 600 million years—are central to her recent work. They are vital to the continuation of plant life\, and therefore to human survival.\n\nIn this exhibition\, Thompson explores the unseen structures of seeds as revealed through electron microscopy. These images highlight the intricate beauty and ingenuity of nature\, which she interprets through her wall-mounted ceramic sculptures.\n\nAt a time when our planet and its ecosystems face increasing threats\, Thompson’s work serves as a reminder of the importance of preserving the natural world. Recognizing the beauty and significance of these often-unseen forms is a crucial first step toward protecting the life systems on which we all depend.
UID:147884-21902213@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/147884
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:North Campus Research Complex Building 18 - Connection Gallery
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260324T142358
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260512T000000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260512T230000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:'Redefining the Crown' Art Exhibit
DESCRIPTION:\"Artist’s statement: For centuries\, hair has been critical to how human beings understand racial categories\, gender designations\, and class status. For Black women in particular\, hair has and continues to be tied to ethnic identity and a history of self-determination\, social justice\, and survival. Thus\, chemotherapy-induced hair loss is a devastating event for Black patients who are also more likely to be diagnosed with aggressive breast cancer subtypes necessitating chemotherapy\, carrying a 40% increased risk of dying from breast cancer.\n\nRedefining the ‘crown’: Approaching chemotherapy-induced alopecia among Black patients with breast cancer” started as a manuscript published in the scientific journal Cancer. But the work could not stop there. “Redefining the Crown” then metamorphosed into a photo essay project aimed at exploring the breast cancer journeys of six Black women and their experiences with hair loss due to chemotherapy. Though the project centers the experience of Black women\, we also acknowledge that breast cancer and chemotherapy-induced alopecia impact individuals of all genders. While the goal is to illuminate the unique stories of Black women who are affected uncommonly by this common disease\, the project is also a call to action regarding the disproportionate breast cancer-related mortality facing Black communities.\n\nIn this portraiture series\, photographer Tafari Stevenson-Howard captures the intimate journeys of Ann Chatman\, Tanisha Kennedy\, Felecia McDaniel\, Shantell Elaine McCoy\, Tamara Lynn Myles\, and Veleria Banks. This exhibition examines how these women have navigated the profound impact of hair loss caused by chemotherapy and how their sense of cultural pride and personal identity have been redefined amidst their battles with breast cancer.\n\nThese survivors have redefined their own crowns. More profound than the new hairstyles they don after hair loss are the invisible crowns that they choose to wear each day: gratitude\, faith\, and resilience. What do their words mean to you? Do they empower you to act?\n\nArtist’s name: Versha Pleasant\nWork Title: Image 2\nDate of creation: September 2024\nArtist’s statement: Photo by Tafari Stevenson-Howard\"
UID:146980-21900195@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/146980
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Michigan Union - 1st Floor - Opera Lounge
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260421T085257
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260512T090000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260512T170000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Debbie Thompson Exhibition
DESCRIPTION:Debbie Thompson works predominantly in clay and draws inspiration from the natural world\, which she frequently references in her work. Her interest in ceramics began in high school when she took classes at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills\, Michigan. She later pursued her passion at the University of Michigan School of Art and Design\, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts. She also holds a Master of Arts from Eastern Michigan University and has completed post-graduate studio coursework at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago\, Maryland Institute College of Art\, Rhode Island School of Design\, and Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts.\n\nThompson taught visual art in the Ann Arbor Public Schools for 34 years and has also taught at the University of Michigan School of Education and Washtenaw Community College. She exhibits her work both locally and nationally and was a member of the Clay Gallery. She continues her practice in her home studio and at the Potters Guild in Ann Arbor\, Michigan. She is a member of the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts and the Michigan Ceramic Art Association. Her work is included in the permanent collection of the International Dinnerware Museum.\n\nThompson’s work has been inspired by the natural world since childhood. Although she initially studied biology in college\, she later shifted her focus to visual art. The textures\, colors\, and forms in her pieces are drawn directly from nature.\nSeeds—structures that have enabled plants to move through space and time for over 600 million years—are central to her recent work. They are vital to the continuation of plant life\, and therefore to human survival.\n\nIn this exhibition\, Thompson explores the unseen structures of seeds as revealed through electron microscopy. These images highlight the intricate beauty and ingenuity of nature\, which she interprets through her wall-mounted ceramic sculptures.\n\nAt a time when our planet and its ecosystems face increasing threats\, Thompson’s work serves as a reminder of the importance of preserving the natural world. Recognizing the beauty and significance of these often-unseen forms is a crucial first step toward protecting the life systems on which we all depend.
UID:147884-21902214@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/147884
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:North Campus Research Complex Building 18 - Connection Gallery
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260429T110903
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260512T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260512T180000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Elsa Olander - Becoming: My Journey Through Stamps
DESCRIPTION:Becoming is the senior thesis project of Stamps School of Art & Design student Elsa Olander. It is a multidisciplinary exhibition that traces her artistic evolution from high school student in Kenya to graduating college senior in the U.S. It explores personal growth through material experimentation\, identity formation\, and cultural hybridity. The work features 2-D\, 3-D\, and 4-D work\; each piece serving as a visual artifact of transformation.\n\nBecoming isn’t about arriving. It’s about highlighting the moments that get us there. The doubt\, discovery\, and growth that shape who we are. It’s a reminder to learn from the past and plan for the future\, but most importantly to live in the present. We become who we are not just through all the choices we make\, but through the people we surround ourselves with\, the information we take-in\, and what we choose to believe or question.\n\n“This exhibition is about my growth and process\, but it’s not singular. Many of my family members\, including my mother\, aren’t able to attend my graduation due to the ongoing visa ban affecting several African countries. This show is my way of honoring their presence in my life\, acknowledging where I’ve come from\, and sharing my journey with those who may not be able to witness it in person. My hope is that viewers see these works not just as a portrait of my evolution\, but as an invitation to reflect\, relate\, and reimagine their own paths of becoming.” \n-Elsa Olander\n\nBecoming: My Journey Through Stamps\nExhibition Dates: April 30 – May 22\, 2026\nOpening Reception: Thursday\, April 30\, 5:30 – 8 p.m. (RSVP Recommended)\nDuderstadt Center Gallery
UID:148001-21902700@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/148001
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Duderstadt Center - Gallery, Rm. 1019 Duderstadt Center
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260324T142358
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260513T000000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260513T230000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:'Redefining the Crown' Art Exhibit
DESCRIPTION:\"Artist’s statement: For centuries\, hair has been critical to how human beings understand racial categories\, gender designations\, and class status. For Black women in particular\, hair has and continues to be tied to ethnic identity and a history of self-determination\, social justice\, and survival. Thus\, chemotherapy-induced hair loss is a devastating event for Black patients who are also more likely to be diagnosed with aggressive breast cancer subtypes necessitating chemotherapy\, carrying a 40% increased risk of dying from breast cancer.\n\nRedefining the ‘crown’: Approaching chemotherapy-induced alopecia among Black patients with breast cancer” started as a manuscript published in the scientific journal Cancer. But the work could not stop there. “Redefining the Crown” then metamorphosed into a photo essay project aimed at exploring the breast cancer journeys of six Black women and their experiences with hair loss due to chemotherapy. Though the project centers the experience of Black women\, we also acknowledge that breast cancer and chemotherapy-induced alopecia impact individuals of all genders. While the goal is to illuminate the unique stories of Black women who are affected uncommonly by this common disease\, the project is also a call to action regarding the disproportionate breast cancer-related mortality facing Black communities.\n\nIn this portraiture series\, photographer Tafari Stevenson-Howard captures the intimate journeys of Ann Chatman\, Tanisha Kennedy\, Felecia McDaniel\, Shantell Elaine McCoy\, Tamara Lynn Myles\, and Veleria Banks. This exhibition examines how these women have navigated the profound impact of hair loss caused by chemotherapy and how their sense of cultural pride and personal identity have been redefined amidst their battles with breast cancer.\n\nThese survivors have redefined their own crowns. More profound than the new hairstyles they don after hair loss are the invisible crowns that they choose to wear each day: gratitude\, faith\, and resilience. What do their words mean to you? Do they empower you to act?\n\nArtist’s name: Versha Pleasant\nWork Title: Image 2\nDate of creation: September 2024\nArtist’s statement: Photo by Tafari Stevenson-Howard\"
UID:146980-21900196@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/146980
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Michigan Union - 1st Floor - Opera Lounge
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260421T085257
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260513T090000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260513T170000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Debbie Thompson Exhibition
DESCRIPTION:Debbie Thompson works predominantly in clay and draws inspiration from the natural world\, which she frequently references in her work. Her interest in ceramics began in high school when she took classes at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills\, Michigan. She later pursued her passion at the University of Michigan School of Art and Design\, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts. She also holds a Master of Arts from Eastern Michigan University and has completed post-graduate studio coursework at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago\, Maryland Institute College of Art\, Rhode Island School of Design\, and Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts.\n\nThompson taught visual art in the Ann Arbor Public Schools for 34 years and has also taught at the University of Michigan School of Education and Washtenaw Community College. She exhibits her work both locally and nationally and was a member of the Clay Gallery. She continues her practice in her home studio and at the Potters Guild in Ann Arbor\, Michigan. She is a member of the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts and the Michigan Ceramic Art Association. Her work is included in the permanent collection of the International Dinnerware Museum.\n\nThompson’s work has been inspired by the natural world since childhood. Although she initially studied biology in college\, she later shifted her focus to visual art. The textures\, colors\, and forms in her pieces are drawn directly from nature.\nSeeds—structures that have enabled plants to move through space and time for over 600 million years—are central to her recent work. They are vital to the continuation of plant life\, and therefore to human survival.\n\nIn this exhibition\, Thompson explores the unseen structures of seeds as revealed through electron microscopy. These images highlight the intricate beauty and ingenuity of nature\, which she interprets through her wall-mounted ceramic sculptures.\n\nAt a time when our planet and its ecosystems face increasing threats\, Thompson’s work serves as a reminder of the importance of preserving the natural world. Recognizing the beauty and significance of these often-unseen forms is a crucial first step toward protecting the life systems on which we all depend.
UID:147884-21902215@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/147884
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:North Campus Research Complex Building 18 - Connection Gallery
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260511T181505
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260513T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260513T190000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Fore-Site (Phase 2): The Stamps Gallery Pillar Project
DESCRIPTION:\n\nFrom September 2025 through November 2026\, Stamps Gallery is partnering in a curatorial collaboration with two Ypsilanti-based\, artist-run project spaces led by Stamps alumni: C.Y.N.K. Studios\, directed by Sally Clegg (Lecturer III and Student Exhibition Coordinator\, MFA ’20) and Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20)\; and Sometimes Space\, directed by Nathan Byrne (Lecturer I\, MFA ’21). Each space hosts dozens of artists annually for exhibitions\, performances\, and events\, fostering experimental work and building community. For this project\, Byrne\, Clegg\, and Narula have been commissioned to reimagine the pillars on Division Street that flank the gallery. In response\, they’ve curated six artists to create new work for the pillars over three cycles:\n\nPhase 1 (September 12 - December 12) artists: Amelia Burns (Cranbrook MFA ’23) and Erin McKenna (MFA ’20)\nPhase 2 (January 12 - August 12) artists: Sally Clegg (MFA ’20) and Kim Karlsrud (MFA ’20)\nPhase 3 (September 12 - November 12) artists: Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20) and Nathan Byrne (MFA ’21)\nPhase 2 Curatorial Statement\n\nCurated by Sometimes Space: Sally Clegg (entry pillar)\nCurated by CYNK Studios: Kim Karlsrud (courtyard pillar)\n\nArtists Sally Clegg and Kim Karlsrud wrap the Division Street pillars in highly site-specific ornament unearthed from the overlooked margins of Ann Arbor. On the Courtyard pillar\, Karlsrud scales up photographs of objects found in liminal spaces surrounding campus buildings on Green Road\, which the artist has encrusted in road salt. On the entryway pillar\, Clegg zooms in on tiny fragments of found material from UMich’s famous “rock” to celebrate nearly seven decades of student art and activism. Both artists uplift aggregate of local human activity to reveal tiny worlds of found form. \n\nSally Clegg: Sentimentary Rock\nSentimentary Rock is a composition of paint slag collected from the UMich rock monument at the corner of Washtenaw Avenue and Hill Street. This colorful composite material has been accumulating at the base of the iconic limestone boulder since the mid 1950’s\, when students began a tradition of painting it in acts of protest\, creativity\, and ritual\, sometimes multiple times per week. Akin to byproducts of industry such as “Fordite” (collectable chunks of automotive overspray sometimes called ‘Detroit agate’)\, Sentimentary Rock includes thousands of layers\, each dripped from a palimpsestic public proclamation. When processed\, sculpted\, sealed\, assembled\, and macro-photographed\, the result is this enlarged array of tiny gems\, intended to celebrate the indissoluble student voice. \n\nKim Karlsrud: What Amasses\nWhat Amasses is an assemblage of everyday found objects collected within the Miller Creek watershed\, an urbanized drainage system that encompasses much of the city of Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan campus. Selected objects were immersed in a road salt solution\, allowing delicate crystalline formations to emerge. Road salt is a common material input into these hydrological networks during the winter months and exists in multiple states of refinement\, expression\, coherence\, and fragmentation. Each object was then arranged\, photographed\, and enlarged to recontextualize these materials in ways that invite deeper reflections on how infrastructure and human agency blur notions of the natural and the artificial. \nArtist Statements/Bios\n\nSally Clegg \nSally Clegg is an artist and educator from Pelham\, Massachusetts. Her studio practice is rooted in sculpture and expanded printmaking\, stemming from a fascination with human efforts to make meaning from our relationships to objects. Clegg integrates history\, popular culture\, literature and philosophy as material for artmaking\, leveraging personal anecdote and humor to reveal the complexity\, absurdity\, and theoretical richness at play in our connections to things and to ourselves. \n\nClegg holds an MFA in Art from The University of Michigan Stamps School of Art & Design\, and a BA in Art & English from Goucher College. She has exhibited nationally and internationally\, and her work can be found in permanent collections at Yale University\, The New York Public Library\, and elsewhere. Her artwork and writing has appeared in ASAP/Journal\, BOMB Magazine\, Sculpture Magazine\, and Hyperallergic. She is a lecturer in Art & Design at the University of Michigan. Website / Instagram\n\n\nKim Karlsrud \nKim Karlsrud is the co-founder of Commonstudio\, a collaborative creative practice that develops socio-ecological and spatial interventions\, installations\, and initiatives working with and within urban landscapes. Her work explores the space between art and design\, and is grounded in the concept of the “commons\,” that which is shared\, as well as that which is ordinary\, banal\, and commonplace.\n\nKarlsrud completed her undergraduate degree in Product Design from Otis College of Art and Design and an MFA in Art from the University of Michigan. She is currently an Assistant Visiting Professor in the College of Design at the University of Oregon\, teaching across Art and Landscape Architecture departments. She jointly received the 2014-15 Prince Charitable Trust Rome Prize in Landscape Architecture\, was a 2017 resident at the Headlands Center for the Arts\, and is the 2025-26 Fuller Fieldscape Fellow. Website / Instagram
UID:138032-21903371@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/138032
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20250828T001529
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260513T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260513T190000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Fore-Site (Phase 3): The Stamps Gallery Pillar Project
DESCRIPTION:From September 2025 through August 2026\, Stamps Gallery is partnering in a curatorial collaboration with two Ypsilanti-based\, artist-run project spaces led by Stamps alumni: C.Y.N.K. Studios\, directed by Sally Clegg (Lecturer III and Student Exhibition Coordinator\, MFA ’20) and Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20)\; and Sometimes Space\, directed by Nathan Byrne (Lecturer I\, MFA ’21). Each space hosts dozens of artists annually for exhibitions\, performances\, and events\, fostering experimental work and building community. For this project\, Byrne\, Clegg\, and Narula have been commissioned to reimagine the pillars on Division Street that flank the gallery. In response\, they've curated six artists to create new work for the pillars over three cycles:\nPhase 1 (September 12 - December 12) artists: Amelia Burns (Cranbrook MFA '23) and Erin McKenna (MFA '20)Phase 2 (January 12 - April 12) artists: Sally Clegg (MFA '20) and Kim Karlsrud (MFA '20)Phase 3 (May 12 - August 12) artists: Abhishek Narula (MFA '20) and Nathan Byrne (MFA '21)\nPhase 3 \nCurated by Sometimes Space: Abhishek Narula (entry pillar)Curated by CYNK Studios: Nathan Byrne (courtyard pillar)
UID:138033-21881327@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/138033
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260429T110903
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260513T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260513T180000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Elsa Olander - Becoming: My Journey Through Stamps
DESCRIPTION:Becoming is the senior thesis project of Stamps School of Art & Design student Elsa Olander. It is a multidisciplinary exhibition that traces her artistic evolution from high school student in Kenya to graduating college senior in the U.S. It explores personal growth through material experimentation\, identity formation\, and cultural hybridity. The work features 2-D\, 3-D\, and 4-D work\; each piece serving as a visual artifact of transformation.\n\nBecoming isn’t about arriving. It’s about highlighting the moments that get us there. The doubt\, discovery\, and growth that shape who we are. It’s a reminder to learn from the past and plan for the future\, but most importantly to live in the present. We become who we are not just through all the choices we make\, but through the people we surround ourselves with\, the information we take-in\, and what we choose to believe or question.\n\n“This exhibition is about my growth and process\, but it’s not singular. Many of my family members\, including my mother\, aren’t able to attend my graduation due to the ongoing visa ban affecting several African countries. This show is my way of honoring their presence in my life\, acknowledging where I’ve come from\, and sharing my journey with those who may not be able to witness it in person. My hope is that viewers see these works not just as a portrait of my evolution\, but as an invitation to reflect\, relate\, and reimagine their own paths of becoming.” \n-Elsa Olander\n\nBecoming: My Journey Through Stamps\nExhibition Dates: April 30 – May 22\, 2026\nOpening Reception: Thursday\, April 30\, 5:30 – 8 p.m. (RSVP Recommended)\nDuderstadt Center Gallery
UID:148001-21902701@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/148001
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Duderstadt Center - Gallery, Rm. 1019 Duderstadt Center
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260324T142358
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260514T000000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260514T230000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:'Redefining the Crown' Art Exhibit
DESCRIPTION:\"Artist’s statement: For centuries\, hair has been critical to how human beings understand racial categories\, gender designations\, and class status. For Black women in particular\, hair has and continues to be tied to ethnic identity and a history of self-determination\, social justice\, and survival. Thus\, chemotherapy-induced hair loss is a devastating event for Black patients who are also more likely to be diagnosed with aggressive breast cancer subtypes necessitating chemotherapy\, carrying a 40% increased risk of dying from breast cancer.\n\nRedefining the ‘crown’: Approaching chemotherapy-induced alopecia among Black patients with breast cancer” started as a manuscript published in the scientific journal Cancer. But the work could not stop there. “Redefining the Crown” then metamorphosed into a photo essay project aimed at exploring the breast cancer journeys of six Black women and their experiences with hair loss due to chemotherapy. Though the project centers the experience of Black women\, we also acknowledge that breast cancer and chemotherapy-induced alopecia impact individuals of all genders. While the goal is to illuminate the unique stories of Black women who are affected uncommonly by this common disease\, the project is also a call to action regarding the disproportionate breast cancer-related mortality facing Black communities.\n\nIn this portraiture series\, photographer Tafari Stevenson-Howard captures the intimate journeys of Ann Chatman\, Tanisha Kennedy\, Felecia McDaniel\, Shantell Elaine McCoy\, Tamara Lynn Myles\, and Veleria Banks. This exhibition examines how these women have navigated the profound impact of hair loss caused by chemotherapy and how their sense of cultural pride and personal identity have been redefined amidst their battles with breast cancer.\n\nThese survivors have redefined their own crowns. More profound than the new hairstyles they don after hair loss are the invisible crowns that they choose to wear each day: gratitude\, faith\, and resilience. What do their words mean to you? Do they empower you to act?\n\nArtist’s name: Versha Pleasant\nWork Title: Image 2\nDate of creation: September 2024\nArtist’s statement: Photo by Tafari Stevenson-Howard\"
UID:146980-21900197@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/146980
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Michigan Union - 1st Floor - Opera Lounge
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260421T085257
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260514T090000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260514T170000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Debbie Thompson Exhibition
DESCRIPTION:Debbie Thompson works predominantly in clay and draws inspiration from the natural world\, which she frequently references in her work. Her interest in ceramics began in high school when she took classes at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills\, Michigan. She later pursued her passion at the University of Michigan School of Art and Design\, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts. She also holds a Master of Arts from Eastern Michigan University and has completed post-graduate studio coursework at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago\, Maryland Institute College of Art\, Rhode Island School of Design\, and Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts.\n\nThompson taught visual art in the Ann Arbor Public Schools for 34 years and has also taught at the University of Michigan School of Education and Washtenaw Community College. She exhibits her work both locally and nationally and was a member of the Clay Gallery. She continues her practice in her home studio and at the Potters Guild in Ann Arbor\, Michigan. She is a member of the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts and the Michigan Ceramic Art Association. Her work is included in the permanent collection of the International Dinnerware Museum.\n\nThompson’s work has been inspired by the natural world since childhood. Although she initially studied biology in college\, she later shifted her focus to visual art. The textures\, colors\, and forms in her pieces are drawn directly from nature.\nSeeds—structures that have enabled plants to move through space and time for over 600 million years—are central to her recent work. They are vital to the continuation of plant life\, and therefore to human survival.\n\nIn this exhibition\, Thompson explores the unseen structures of seeds as revealed through electron microscopy. These images highlight the intricate beauty and ingenuity of nature\, which she interprets through her wall-mounted ceramic sculptures.\n\nAt a time when our planet and its ecosystems face increasing threats\, Thompson’s work serves as a reminder of the importance of preserving the natural world. Recognizing the beauty and significance of these often-unseen forms is a crucial first step toward protecting the life systems on which we all depend.
UID:147884-21902216@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/147884
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:North Campus Research Complex Building 18 - Connection Gallery
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260511T181505
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260514T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260514T190000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Fore-Site (Phase 2): The Stamps Gallery Pillar Project
DESCRIPTION:\n\nFrom September 2025 through November 2026\, Stamps Gallery is partnering in a curatorial collaboration with two Ypsilanti-based\, artist-run project spaces led by Stamps alumni: C.Y.N.K. Studios\, directed by Sally Clegg (Lecturer III and Student Exhibition Coordinator\, MFA ’20) and Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20)\; and Sometimes Space\, directed by Nathan Byrne (Lecturer I\, MFA ’21). Each space hosts dozens of artists annually for exhibitions\, performances\, and events\, fostering experimental work and building community. For this project\, Byrne\, Clegg\, and Narula have been commissioned to reimagine the pillars on Division Street that flank the gallery. In response\, they’ve curated six artists to create new work for the pillars over three cycles:\n\nPhase 1 (September 12 - December 12) artists: Amelia Burns (Cranbrook MFA ’23) and Erin McKenna (MFA ’20)\nPhase 2 (January 12 - August 12) artists: Sally Clegg (MFA ’20) and Kim Karlsrud (MFA ’20)\nPhase 3 (September 12 - November 12) artists: Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20) and Nathan Byrne (MFA ’21)\nPhase 2 Curatorial Statement\n\nCurated by Sometimes Space: Sally Clegg (entry pillar)\nCurated by CYNK Studios: Kim Karlsrud (courtyard pillar)\n\nArtists Sally Clegg and Kim Karlsrud wrap the Division Street pillars in highly site-specific ornament unearthed from the overlooked margins of Ann Arbor. On the Courtyard pillar\, Karlsrud scales up photographs of objects found in liminal spaces surrounding campus buildings on Green Road\, which the artist has encrusted in road salt. On the entryway pillar\, Clegg zooms in on tiny fragments of found material from UMich’s famous “rock” to celebrate nearly seven decades of student art and activism. Both artists uplift aggregate of local human activity to reveal tiny worlds of found form. \n\nSally Clegg: Sentimentary Rock\nSentimentary Rock is a composition of paint slag collected from the UMich rock monument at the corner of Washtenaw Avenue and Hill Street. This colorful composite material has been accumulating at the base of the iconic limestone boulder since the mid 1950’s\, when students began a tradition of painting it in acts of protest\, creativity\, and ritual\, sometimes multiple times per week. Akin to byproducts of industry such as “Fordite” (collectable chunks of automotive overspray sometimes called ‘Detroit agate’)\, Sentimentary Rock includes thousands of layers\, each dripped from a palimpsestic public proclamation. When processed\, sculpted\, sealed\, assembled\, and macro-photographed\, the result is this enlarged array of tiny gems\, intended to celebrate the indissoluble student voice. \n\nKim Karlsrud: What Amasses\nWhat Amasses is an assemblage of everyday found objects collected within the Miller Creek watershed\, an urbanized drainage system that encompasses much of the city of Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan campus. Selected objects were immersed in a road salt solution\, allowing delicate crystalline formations to emerge. Road salt is a common material input into these hydrological networks during the winter months and exists in multiple states of refinement\, expression\, coherence\, and fragmentation. Each object was then arranged\, photographed\, and enlarged to recontextualize these materials in ways that invite deeper reflections on how infrastructure and human agency blur notions of the natural and the artificial. \nArtist Statements/Bios\n\nSally Clegg \nSally Clegg is an artist and educator from Pelham\, Massachusetts. Her studio practice is rooted in sculpture and expanded printmaking\, stemming from a fascination with human efforts to make meaning from our relationships to objects. Clegg integrates history\, popular culture\, literature and philosophy as material for artmaking\, leveraging personal anecdote and humor to reveal the complexity\, absurdity\, and theoretical richness at play in our connections to things and to ourselves. \n\nClegg holds an MFA in Art from The University of Michigan Stamps School of Art & Design\, and a BA in Art & English from Goucher College. She has exhibited nationally and internationally\, and her work can be found in permanent collections at Yale University\, The New York Public Library\, and elsewhere. Her artwork and writing has appeared in ASAP/Journal\, BOMB Magazine\, Sculpture Magazine\, and Hyperallergic. She is a lecturer in Art & Design at the University of Michigan. Website / Instagram\n\n\nKim Karlsrud \nKim Karlsrud is the co-founder of Commonstudio\, a collaborative creative practice that develops socio-ecological and spatial interventions\, installations\, and initiatives working with and within urban landscapes. Her work explores the space between art and design\, and is grounded in the concept of the “commons\,” that which is shared\, as well as that which is ordinary\, banal\, and commonplace.\n\nKarlsrud completed her undergraduate degree in Product Design from Otis College of Art and Design and an MFA in Art from the University of Michigan. She is currently an Assistant Visiting Professor in the College of Design at the University of Oregon\, teaching across Art and Landscape Architecture departments. She jointly received the 2014-15 Prince Charitable Trust Rome Prize in Landscape Architecture\, was a 2017 resident at the Headlands Center for the Arts\, and is the 2025-26 Fuller Fieldscape Fellow. Website / Instagram
UID:138032-21903372@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/138032
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20250828T001529
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260514T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260514T190000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Fore-Site (Phase 3): The Stamps Gallery Pillar Project
DESCRIPTION:From September 2025 through August 2026\, Stamps Gallery is partnering in a curatorial collaboration with two Ypsilanti-based\, artist-run project spaces led by Stamps alumni: C.Y.N.K. Studios\, directed by Sally Clegg (Lecturer III and Student Exhibition Coordinator\, MFA ’20) and Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20)\; and Sometimes Space\, directed by Nathan Byrne (Lecturer I\, MFA ’21). Each space hosts dozens of artists annually for exhibitions\, performances\, and events\, fostering experimental work and building community. For this project\, Byrne\, Clegg\, and Narula have been commissioned to reimagine the pillars on Division Street that flank the gallery. In response\, they've curated six artists to create new work for the pillars over three cycles:\nPhase 1 (September 12 - December 12) artists: Amelia Burns (Cranbrook MFA '23) and Erin McKenna (MFA '20)Phase 2 (January 12 - April 12) artists: Sally Clegg (MFA '20) and Kim Karlsrud (MFA '20)Phase 3 (May 12 - August 12) artists: Abhishek Narula (MFA '20) and Nathan Byrne (MFA '21)\nPhase 3 \nCurated by Sometimes Space: Abhishek Narula (entry pillar)Curated by CYNK Studios: Nathan Byrne (courtyard pillar)
UID:138033-21881328@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/138033
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260429T110903
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260514T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260514T180000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Elsa Olander - Becoming: My Journey Through Stamps
DESCRIPTION:Becoming is the senior thesis project of Stamps School of Art & Design student Elsa Olander. It is a multidisciplinary exhibition that traces her artistic evolution from high school student in Kenya to graduating college senior in the U.S. It explores personal growth through material experimentation\, identity formation\, and cultural hybridity. The work features 2-D\, 3-D\, and 4-D work\; each piece serving as a visual artifact of transformation.\n\nBecoming isn’t about arriving. It’s about highlighting the moments that get us there. The doubt\, discovery\, and growth that shape who we are. It’s a reminder to learn from the past and plan for the future\, but most importantly to live in the present. We become who we are not just through all the choices we make\, but through the people we surround ourselves with\, the information we take-in\, and what we choose to believe or question.\n\n“This exhibition is about my growth and process\, but it’s not singular. Many of my family members\, including my mother\, aren’t able to attend my graduation due to the ongoing visa ban affecting several African countries. This show is my way of honoring their presence in my life\, acknowledging where I’ve come from\, and sharing my journey with those who may not be able to witness it in person. My hope is that viewers see these works not just as a portrait of my evolution\, but as an invitation to reflect\, relate\, and reimagine their own paths of becoming.” \n-Elsa Olander\n\nBecoming: My Journey Through Stamps\nExhibition Dates: April 30 – May 22\, 2026\nOpening Reception: Thursday\, April 30\, 5:30 – 8 p.m. (RSVP Recommended)\nDuderstadt Center Gallery
UID:148001-21902702@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/148001
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Duderstadt Center - Gallery, Rm. 1019 Duderstadt Center
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260324T142358
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260515T000000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260515T230000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:'Redefining the Crown' Art Exhibit
DESCRIPTION:\"Artist’s statement: For centuries\, hair has been critical to how human beings understand racial categories\, gender designations\, and class status. For Black women in particular\, hair has and continues to be tied to ethnic identity and a history of self-determination\, social justice\, and survival. Thus\, chemotherapy-induced hair loss is a devastating event for Black patients who are also more likely to be diagnosed with aggressive breast cancer subtypes necessitating chemotherapy\, carrying a 40% increased risk of dying from breast cancer.\n\nRedefining the ‘crown’: Approaching chemotherapy-induced alopecia among Black patients with breast cancer” started as a manuscript published in the scientific journal Cancer. But the work could not stop there. “Redefining the Crown” then metamorphosed into a photo essay project aimed at exploring the breast cancer journeys of six Black women and their experiences with hair loss due to chemotherapy. Though the project centers the experience of Black women\, we also acknowledge that breast cancer and chemotherapy-induced alopecia impact individuals of all genders. While the goal is to illuminate the unique stories of Black women who are affected uncommonly by this common disease\, the project is also a call to action regarding the disproportionate breast cancer-related mortality facing Black communities.\n\nIn this portraiture series\, photographer Tafari Stevenson-Howard captures the intimate journeys of Ann Chatman\, Tanisha Kennedy\, Felecia McDaniel\, Shantell Elaine McCoy\, Tamara Lynn Myles\, and Veleria Banks. This exhibition examines how these women have navigated the profound impact of hair loss caused by chemotherapy and how their sense of cultural pride and personal identity have been redefined amidst their battles with breast cancer.\n\nThese survivors have redefined their own crowns. More profound than the new hairstyles they don after hair loss are the invisible crowns that they choose to wear each day: gratitude\, faith\, and resilience. What do their words mean to you? Do they empower you to act?\n\nArtist’s name: Versha Pleasant\nWork Title: Image 2\nDate of creation: September 2024\nArtist’s statement: Photo by Tafari Stevenson-Howard\"
UID:146980-21900198@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/146980
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Michigan Union - 1st Floor - Opera Lounge
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260421T085257
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260515T090000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260515T170000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Debbie Thompson Exhibition
DESCRIPTION:Debbie Thompson works predominantly in clay and draws inspiration from the natural world\, which she frequently references in her work. Her interest in ceramics began in high school when she took classes at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills\, Michigan. She later pursued her passion at the University of Michigan School of Art and Design\, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts. She also holds a Master of Arts from Eastern Michigan University and has completed post-graduate studio coursework at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago\, Maryland Institute College of Art\, Rhode Island School of Design\, and Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts.\n\nThompson taught visual art in the Ann Arbor Public Schools for 34 years and has also taught at the University of Michigan School of Education and Washtenaw Community College. She exhibits her work both locally and nationally and was a member of the Clay Gallery. She continues her practice in her home studio and at the Potters Guild in Ann Arbor\, Michigan. She is a member of the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts and the Michigan Ceramic Art Association. Her work is included in the permanent collection of the International Dinnerware Museum.\n\nThompson’s work has been inspired by the natural world since childhood. Although she initially studied biology in college\, she later shifted her focus to visual art. The textures\, colors\, and forms in her pieces are drawn directly from nature.\nSeeds—structures that have enabled plants to move through space and time for over 600 million years—are central to her recent work. They are vital to the continuation of plant life\, and therefore to human survival.\n\nIn this exhibition\, Thompson explores the unseen structures of seeds as revealed through electron microscopy. These images highlight the intricate beauty and ingenuity of nature\, which she interprets through her wall-mounted ceramic sculptures.\n\nAt a time when our planet and its ecosystems face increasing threats\, Thompson’s work serves as a reminder of the importance of preserving the natural world. Recognizing the beauty and significance of these often-unseen forms is a crucial first step toward protecting the life systems on which we all depend.
UID:147884-21902217@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/147884
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:North Campus Research Complex Building 18 - Connection Gallery
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260511T181505
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260515T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260515T190000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Fore-Site (Phase 2): The Stamps Gallery Pillar Project
DESCRIPTION:\n\nFrom September 2025 through November 2026\, Stamps Gallery is partnering in a curatorial collaboration with two Ypsilanti-based\, artist-run project spaces led by Stamps alumni: C.Y.N.K. Studios\, directed by Sally Clegg (Lecturer III and Student Exhibition Coordinator\, MFA ’20) and Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20)\; and Sometimes Space\, directed by Nathan Byrne (Lecturer I\, MFA ’21). Each space hosts dozens of artists annually for exhibitions\, performances\, and events\, fostering experimental work and building community. For this project\, Byrne\, Clegg\, and Narula have been commissioned to reimagine the pillars on Division Street that flank the gallery. In response\, they’ve curated six artists to create new work for the pillars over three cycles:\n\nPhase 1 (September 12 - December 12) artists: Amelia Burns (Cranbrook MFA ’23) and Erin McKenna (MFA ’20)\nPhase 2 (January 12 - August 12) artists: Sally Clegg (MFA ’20) and Kim Karlsrud (MFA ’20)\nPhase 3 (September 12 - November 12) artists: Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20) and Nathan Byrne (MFA ’21)\nPhase 2 Curatorial Statement\n\nCurated by Sometimes Space: Sally Clegg (entry pillar)\nCurated by CYNK Studios: Kim Karlsrud (courtyard pillar)\n\nArtists Sally Clegg and Kim Karlsrud wrap the Division Street pillars in highly site-specific ornament unearthed from the overlooked margins of Ann Arbor. On the Courtyard pillar\, Karlsrud scales up photographs of objects found in liminal spaces surrounding campus buildings on Green Road\, which the artist has encrusted in road salt. On the entryway pillar\, Clegg zooms in on tiny fragments of found material from UMich’s famous “rock” to celebrate nearly seven decades of student art and activism. Both artists uplift aggregate of local human activity to reveal tiny worlds of found form. \n\nSally Clegg: Sentimentary Rock\nSentimentary Rock is a composition of paint slag collected from the UMich rock monument at the corner of Washtenaw Avenue and Hill Street. This colorful composite material has been accumulating at the base of the iconic limestone boulder since the mid 1950’s\, when students began a tradition of painting it in acts of protest\, creativity\, and ritual\, sometimes multiple times per week. Akin to byproducts of industry such as “Fordite” (collectable chunks of automotive overspray sometimes called ‘Detroit agate’)\, Sentimentary Rock includes thousands of layers\, each dripped from a palimpsestic public proclamation. When processed\, sculpted\, sealed\, assembled\, and macro-photographed\, the result is this enlarged array of tiny gems\, intended to celebrate the indissoluble student voice. \n\nKim Karlsrud: What Amasses\nWhat Amasses is an assemblage of everyday found objects collected within the Miller Creek watershed\, an urbanized drainage system that encompasses much of the city of Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan campus. Selected objects were immersed in a road salt solution\, allowing delicate crystalline formations to emerge. Road salt is a common material input into these hydrological networks during the winter months and exists in multiple states of refinement\, expression\, coherence\, and fragmentation. Each object was then arranged\, photographed\, and enlarged to recontextualize these materials in ways that invite deeper reflections on how infrastructure and human agency blur notions of the natural and the artificial. \nArtist Statements/Bios\n\nSally Clegg \nSally Clegg is an artist and educator from Pelham\, Massachusetts. Her studio practice is rooted in sculpture and expanded printmaking\, stemming from a fascination with human efforts to make meaning from our relationships to objects. Clegg integrates history\, popular culture\, literature and philosophy as material for artmaking\, leveraging personal anecdote and humor to reveal the complexity\, absurdity\, and theoretical richness at play in our connections to things and to ourselves. \n\nClegg holds an MFA in Art from The University of Michigan Stamps School of Art & Design\, and a BA in Art & English from Goucher College. She has exhibited nationally and internationally\, and her work can be found in permanent collections at Yale University\, The New York Public Library\, and elsewhere. Her artwork and writing has appeared in ASAP/Journal\, BOMB Magazine\, Sculpture Magazine\, and Hyperallergic. She is a lecturer in Art & Design at the University of Michigan. Website / Instagram\n\n\nKim Karlsrud \nKim Karlsrud is the co-founder of Commonstudio\, a collaborative creative practice that develops socio-ecological and spatial interventions\, installations\, and initiatives working with and within urban landscapes. Her work explores the space between art and design\, and is grounded in the concept of the “commons\,” that which is shared\, as well as that which is ordinary\, banal\, and commonplace.\n\nKarlsrud completed her undergraduate degree in Product Design from Otis College of Art and Design and an MFA in Art from the University of Michigan. She is currently an Assistant Visiting Professor in the College of Design at the University of Oregon\, teaching across Art and Landscape Architecture departments. She jointly received the 2014-15 Prince Charitable Trust Rome Prize in Landscape Architecture\, was a 2017 resident at the Headlands Center for the Arts\, and is the 2025-26 Fuller Fieldscape Fellow. Website / Instagram
UID:138032-21903373@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/138032
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20250828T001529
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260515T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260515T190000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Fore-Site (Phase 3): The Stamps Gallery Pillar Project
DESCRIPTION:From September 2025 through August 2026\, Stamps Gallery is partnering in a curatorial collaboration with two Ypsilanti-based\, artist-run project spaces led by Stamps alumni: C.Y.N.K. Studios\, directed by Sally Clegg (Lecturer III and Student Exhibition Coordinator\, MFA ’20) and Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20)\; and Sometimes Space\, directed by Nathan Byrne (Lecturer I\, MFA ’21). Each space hosts dozens of artists annually for exhibitions\, performances\, and events\, fostering experimental work and building community. For this project\, Byrne\, Clegg\, and Narula have been commissioned to reimagine the pillars on Division Street that flank the gallery. In response\, they've curated six artists to create new work for the pillars over three cycles:\nPhase 1 (September 12 - December 12) artists: Amelia Burns (Cranbrook MFA '23) and Erin McKenna (MFA '20)Phase 2 (January 12 - April 12) artists: Sally Clegg (MFA '20) and Kim Karlsrud (MFA '20)Phase 3 (May 12 - August 12) artists: Abhishek Narula (MFA '20) and Nathan Byrne (MFA '21)\nPhase 3 \nCurated by Sometimes Space: Abhishek Narula (entry pillar)Curated by CYNK Studios: Nathan Byrne (courtyard pillar)
UID:138033-21881329@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/138033
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260429T110903
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260515T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260515T180000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Elsa Olander - Becoming: My Journey Through Stamps
DESCRIPTION:Becoming is the senior thesis project of Stamps School of Art & Design student Elsa Olander. It is a multidisciplinary exhibition that traces her artistic evolution from high school student in Kenya to graduating college senior in the U.S. It explores personal growth through material experimentation\, identity formation\, and cultural hybridity. The work features 2-D\, 3-D\, and 4-D work\; each piece serving as a visual artifact of transformation.\n\nBecoming isn’t about arriving. It’s about highlighting the moments that get us there. The doubt\, discovery\, and growth that shape who we are. It’s a reminder to learn from the past and plan for the future\, but most importantly to live in the present. We become who we are not just through all the choices we make\, but through the people we surround ourselves with\, the information we take-in\, and what we choose to believe or question.\n\n“This exhibition is about my growth and process\, but it’s not singular. Many of my family members\, including my mother\, aren’t able to attend my graduation due to the ongoing visa ban affecting several African countries. This show is my way of honoring their presence in my life\, acknowledging where I’ve come from\, and sharing my journey with those who may not be able to witness it in person. My hope is that viewers see these works not just as a portrait of my evolution\, but as an invitation to reflect\, relate\, and reimagine their own paths of becoming.” \n-Elsa Olander\n\nBecoming: My Journey Through Stamps\nExhibition Dates: April 30 – May 22\, 2026\nOpening Reception: Thursday\, April 30\, 5:30 – 8 p.m. (RSVP Recommended)\nDuderstadt Center Gallery
UID:148001-21902703@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/148001
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Duderstadt Center - Gallery, Rm. 1019 Duderstadt Center
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260511T181505
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260516T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260516T190000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Fore-Site (Phase 2): The Stamps Gallery Pillar Project
DESCRIPTION:\n\nFrom September 2025 through November 2026\, Stamps Gallery is partnering in a curatorial collaboration with two Ypsilanti-based\, artist-run project spaces led by Stamps alumni: C.Y.N.K. Studios\, directed by Sally Clegg (Lecturer III and Student Exhibition Coordinator\, MFA ’20) and Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20)\; and Sometimes Space\, directed by Nathan Byrne (Lecturer I\, MFA ’21). Each space hosts dozens of artists annually for exhibitions\, performances\, and events\, fostering experimental work and building community. For this project\, Byrne\, Clegg\, and Narula have been commissioned to reimagine the pillars on Division Street that flank the gallery. In response\, they’ve curated six artists to create new work for the pillars over three cycles:\n\nPhase 1 (September 12 - December 12) artists: Amelia Burns (Cranbrook MFA ’23) and Erin McKenna (MFA ’20)\nPhase 2 (January 12 - August 12) artists: Sally Clegg (MFA ’20) and Kim Karlsrud (MFA ’20)\nPhase 3 (September 12 - November 12) artists: Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20) and Nathan Byrne (MFA ’21)\nPhase 2 Curatorial Statement\n\nCurated by Sometimes Space: Sally Clegg (entry pillar)\nCurated by CYNK Studios: Kim Karlsrud (courtyard pillar)\n\nArtists Sally Clegg and Kim Karlsrud wrap the Division Street pillars in highly site-specific ornament unearthed from the overlooked margins of Ann Arbor. On the Courtyard pillar\, Karlsrud scales up photographs of objects found in liminal spaces surrounding campus buildings on Green Road\, which the artist has encrusted in road salt. On the entryway pillar\, Clegg zooms in on tiny fragments of found material from UMich’s famous “rock” to celebrate nearly seven decades of student art and activism. Both artists uplift aggregate of local human activity to reveal tiny worlds of found form. \n\nSally Clegg: Sentimentary Rock\nSentimentary Rock is a composition of paint slag collected from the UMich rock monument at the corner of Washtenaw Avenue and Hill Street. This colorful composite material has been accumulating at the base of the iconic limestone boulder since the mid 1950’s\, when students began a tradition of painting it in acts of protest\, creativity\, and ritual\, sometimes multiple times per week. Akin to byproducts of industry such as “Fordite” (collectable chunks of automotive overspray sometimes called ‘Detroit agate’)\, Sentimentary Rock includes thousands of layers\, each dripped from a palimpsestic public proclamation. When processed\, sculpted\, sealed\, assembled\, and macro-photographed\, the result is this enlarged array of tiny gems\, intended to celebrate the indissoluble student voice. \n\nKim Karlsrud: What Amasses\nWhat Amasses is an assemblage of everyday found objects collected within the Miller Creek watershed\, an urbanized drainage system that encompasses much of the city of Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan campus. Selected objects were immersed in a road salt solution\, allowing delicate crystalline formations to emerge. Road salt is a common material input into these hydrological networks during the winter months and exists in multiple states of refinement\, expression\, coherence\, and fragmentation. Each object was then arranged\, photographed\, and enlarged to recontextualize these materials in ways that invite deeper reflections on how infrastructure and human agency blur notions of the natural and the artificial. \nArtist Statements/Bios\n\nSally Clegg \nSally Clegg is an artist and educator from Pelham\, Massachusetts. Her studio practice is rooted in sculpture and expanded printmaking\, stemming from a fascination with human efforts to make meaning from our relationships to objects. Clegg integrates history\, popular culture\, literature and philosophy as material for artmaking\, leveraging personal anecdote and humor to reveal the complexity\, absurdity\, and theoretical richness at play in our connections to things and to ourselves. \n\nClegg holds an MFA in Art from The University of Michigan Stamps School of Art & Design\, and a BA in Art & English from Goucher College. She has exhibited nationally and internationally\, and her work can be found in permanent collections at Yale University\, The New York Public Library\, and elsewhere. Her artwork and writing has appeared in ASAP/Journal\, BOMB Magazine\, Sculpture Magazine\, and Hyperallergic. She is a lecturer in Art & Design at the University of Michigan. Website / Instagram\n\n\nKim Karlsrud \nKim Karlsrud is the co-founder of Commonstudio\, a collaborative creative practice that develops socio-ecological and spatial interventions\, installations\, and initiatives working with and within urban landscapes. Her work explores the space between art and design\, and is grounded in the concept of the “commons\,” that which is shared\, as well as that which is ordinary\, banal\, and commonplace.\n\nKarlsrud completed her undergraduate degree in Product Design from Otis College of Art and Design and an MFA in Art from the University of Michigan. She is currently an Assistant Visiting Professor in the College of Design at the University of Oregon\, teaching across Art and Landscape Architecture departments. She jointly received the 2014-15 Prince Charitable Trust Rome Prize in Landscape Architecture\, was a 2017 resident at the Headlands Center for the Arts\, and is the 2025-26 Fuller Fieldscape Fellow. Website / Instagram
UID:138032-21903374@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/138032
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20250828T001529
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260516T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260516T190000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Fore-Site (Phase 3): The Stamps Gallery Pillar Project
DESCRIPTION:From September 2025 through August 2026\, Stamps Gallery is partnering in a curatorial collaboration with two Ypsilanti-based\, artist-run project spaces led by Stamps alumni: C.Y.N.K. Studios\, directed by Sally Clegg (Lecturer III and Student Exhibition Coordinator\, MFA ’20) and Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20)\; and Sometimes Space\, directed by Nathan Byrne (Lecturer I\, MFA ’21). Each space hosts dozens of artists annually for exhibitions\, performances\, and events\, fostering experimental work and building community. For this project\, Byrne\, Clegg\, and Narula have been commissioned to reimagine the pillars on Division Street that flank the gallery. In response\, they've curated six artists to create new work for the pillars over three cycles:\nPhase 1 (September 12 - December 12) artists: Amelia Burns (Cranbrook MFA '23) and Erin McKenna (MFA '20)Phase 2 (January 12 - April 12) artists: Sally Clegg (MFA '20) and Kim Karlsrud (MFA '20)Phase 3 (May 12 - August 12) artists: Abhishek Narula (MFA '20) and Nathan Byrne (MFA '21)\nPhase 3 \nCurated by Sometimes Space: Abhishek Narula (entry pillar)Curated by CYNK Studios: Nathan Byrne (courtyard pillar)
UID:138033-21881330@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/138033
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260429T110903
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260517T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260517T180000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Elsa Olander - Becoming: My Journey Through Stamps
DESCRIPTION:Becoming is the senior thesis project of Stamps School of Art & Design student Elsa Olander. It is a multidisciplinary exhibition that traces her artistic evolution from high school student in Kenya to graduating college senior in the U.S. It explores personal growth through material experimentation\, identity formation\, and cultural hybridity. The work features 2-D\, 3-D\, and 4-D work\; each piece serving as a visual artifact of transformation.\n\nBecoming isn’t about arriving. It’s about highlighting the moments that get us there. The doubt\, discovery\, and growth that shape who we are. It’s a reminder to learn from the past and plan for the future\, but most importantly to live in the present. We become who we are not just through all the choices we make\, but through the people we surround ourselves with\, the information we take-in\, and what we choose to believe or question.\n\n“This exhibition is about my growth and process\, but it’s not singular. Many of my family members\, including my mother\, aren’t able to attend my graduation due to the ongoing visa ban affecting several African countries. This show is my way of honoring their presence in my life\, acknowledging where I’ve come from\, and sharing my journey with those who may not be able to witness it in person. My hope is that viewers see these works not just as a portrait of my evolution\, but as an invitation to reflect\, relate\, and reimagine their own paths of becoming.” \n-Elsa Olander\n\nBecoming: My Journey Through Stamps\nExhibition Dates: April 30 – May 22\, 2026\nOpening Reception: Thursday\, April 30\, 5:30 – 8 p.m. (RSVP Recommended)\nDuderstadt Center Gallery
UID:148001-21902705@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/148001
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Duderstadt Center - Gallery, Rm. 1019 Duderstadt Center
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260515T141151
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260517T140000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260517T160000
SUMMARY:Presentation:Ann Arbor Orchid Society – Pleurothallids
DESCRIPTION:Lynn O'Shaughnessy will give a presentation on Pleurothallids\, known as the \"weeds of the orchid world.\" The program also includes a silent auction\, an orchid raffle table\, members’ show-and-tell\, and a brief business meeting.\n\nFree to attend\, open to all\; metered parking. Contact: aaorchidsociety@gmail.com with questions.
UID:148311-21903840@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/148311
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Matthaei Botanical Gardens
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260421T085257
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260518T090000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260518T170000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Debbie Thompson Exhibition
DESCRIPTION:Debbie Thompson works predominantly in clay and draws inspiration from the natural world\, which she frequently references in her work. Her interest in ceramics began in high school when she took classes at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills\, Michigan. She later pursued her passion at the University of Michigan School of Art and Design\, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts. She also holds a Master of Arts from Eastern Michigan University and has completed post-graduate studio coursework at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago\, Maryland Institute College of Art\, Rhode Island School of Design\, and Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts.\n\nThompson taught visual art in the Ann Arbor Public Schools for 34 years and has also taught at the University of Michigan School of Education and Washtenaw Community College. She exhibits her work both locally and nationally and was a member of the Clay Gallery. She continues her practice in her home studio and at the Potters Guild in Ann Arbor\, Michigan. She is a member of the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts and the Michigan Ceramic Art Association. Her work is included in the permanent collection of the International Dinnerware Museum.\n\nThompson’s work has been inspired by the natural world since childhood. Although she initially studied biology in college\, she later shifted her focus to visual art. The textures\, colors\, and forms in her pieces are drawn directly from nature.\nSeeds—structures that have enabled plants to move through space and time for over 600 million years—are central to her recent work. They are vital to the continuation of plant life\, and therefore to human survival.\n\nIn this exhibition\, Thompson explores the unseen structures of seeds as revealed through electron microscopy. These images highlight the intricate beauty and ingenuity of nature\, which she interprets through her wall-mounted ceramic sculptures.\n\nAt a time when our planet and its ecosystems face increasing threats\, Thompson’s work serves as a reminder of the importance of preserving the natural world. Recognizing the beauty and significance of these often-unseen forms is a crucial first step toward protecting the life systems on which we all depend.
UID:147884-21902220@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/147884
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:North Campus Research Complex Building 18 - Connection Gallery
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260421T085257
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260519T090000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260519T170000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Debbie Thompson Exhibition
DESCRIPTION:Debbie Thompson works predominantly in clay and draws inspiration from the natural world\, which she frequently references in her work. Her interest in ceramics began in high school when she took classes at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills\, Michigan. She later pursued her passion at the University of Michigan School of Art and Design\, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts. She also holds a Master of Arts from Eastern Michigan University and has completed post-graduate studio coursework at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago\, Maryland Institute College of Art\, Rhode Island School of Design\, and Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts.\n\nThompson taught visual art in the Ann Arbor Public Schools for 34 years and has also taught at the University of Michigan School of Education and Washtenaw Community College. She exhibits her work both locally and nationally and was a member of the Clay Gallery. She continues her practice in her home studio and at the Potters Guild in Ann Arbor\, Michigan. She is a member of the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts and the Michigan Ceramic Art Association. Her work is included in the permanent collection of the International Dinnerware Museum.\n\nThompson’s work has been inspired by the natural world since childhood. Although she initially studied biology in college\, she later shifted her focus to visual art. The textures\, colors\, and forms in her pieces are drawn directly from nature.\nSeeds—structures that have enabled plants to move through space and time for over 600 million years—are central to her recent work. They are vital to the continuation of plant life\, and therefore to human survival.\n\nIn this exhibition\, Thompson explores the unseen structures of seeds as revealed through electron microscopy. These images highlight the intricate beauty and ingenuity of nature\, which she interprets through her wall-mounted ceramic sculptures.\n\nAt a time when our planet and its ecosystems face increasing threats\, Thompson’s work serves as a reminder of the importance of preserving the natural world. Recognizing the beauty and significance of these often-unseen forms is a crucial first step toward protecting the life systems on which we all depend.
UID:147884-21902221@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/147884
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:North Campus Research Complex Building 18 - Connection Gallery
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260429T110903
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260519T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260519T180000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Elsa Olander - Becoming: My Journey Through Stamps
DESCRIPTION:Becoming is the senior thesis project of Stamps School of Art & Design student Elsa Olander. It is a multidisciplinary exhibition that traces her artistic evolution from high school student in Kenya to graduating college senior in the U.S. It explores personal growth through material experimentation\, identity formation\, and cultural hybridity. The work features 2-D\, 3-D\, and 4-D work\; each piece serving as a visual artifact of transformation.\n\nBecoming isn’t about arriving. It’s about highlighting the moments that get us there. The doubt\, discovery\, and growth that shape who we are. It’s a reminder to learn from the past and plan for the future\, but most importantly to live in the present. We become who we are not just through all the choices we make\, but through the people we surround ourselves with\, the information we take-in\, and what we choose to believe or question.\n\n“This exhibition is about my growth and process\, but it’s not singular. Many of my family members\, including my mother\, aren’t able to attend my graduation due to the ongoing visa ban affecting several African countries. This show is my way of honoring their presence in my life\, acknowledging where I’ve come from\, and sharing my journey with those who may not be able to witness it in person. My hope is that viewers see these works not just as a portrait of my evolution\, but as an invitation to reflect\, relate\, and reimagine their own paths of becoming.” \n-Elsa Olander\n\nBecoming: My Journey Through Stamps\nExhibition Dates: April 30 – May 22\, 2026\nOpening Reception: Thursday\, April 30\, 5:30 – 8 p.m. (RSVP Recommended)\nDuderstadt Center Gallery
UID:148001-21902707@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/148001
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Duderstadt Center - Gallery, Rm. 1019 Duderstadt Center
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260421T085257
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260520T090000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260520T170000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Debbie Thompson Exhibition
DESCRIPTION:Debbie Thompson works predominantly in clay and draws inspiration from the natural world\, which she frequently references in her work. Her interest in ceramics began in high school when she took classes at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills\, Michigan. She later pursued her passion at the University of Michigan School of Art and Design\, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts. She also holds a Master of Arts from Eastern Michigan University and has completed post-graduate studio coursework at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago\, Maryland Institute College of Art\, Rhode Island School of Design\, and Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts.\n\nThompson taught visual art in the Ann Arbor Public Schools for 34 years and has also taught at the University of Michigan School of Education and Washtenaw Community College. She exhibits her work both locally and nationally and was a member of the Clay Gallery. She continues her practice in her home studio and at the Potters Guild in Ann Arbor\, Michigan. She is a member of the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts and the Michigan Ceramic Art Association. Her work is included in the permanent collection of the International Dinnerware Museum.\n\nThompson’s work has been inspired by the natural world since childhood. Although she initially studied biology in college\, she later shifted her focus to visual art. The textures\, colors\, and forms in her pieces are drawn directly from nature.\nSeeds—structures that have enabled plants to move through space and time for over 600 million years—are central to her recent work. They are vital to the continuation of plant life\, and therefore to human survival.\n\nIn this exhibition\, Thompson explores the unseen structures of seeds as revealed through electron microscopy. These images highlight the intricate beauty and ingenuity of nature\, which she interprets through her wall-mounted ceramic sculptures.\n\nAt a time when our planet and its ecosystems face increasing threats\, Thompson’s work serves as a reminder of the importance of preserving the natural world. Recognizing the beauty and significance of these often-unseen forms is a crucial first step toward protecting the life systems on which we all depend.
UID:147884-21902222@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/147884
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:North Campus Research Complex Building 18 - Connection Gallery
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260511T181505
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260520T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260520T190000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Fore-Site (Phase 2): The Stamps Gallery Pillar Project
DESCRIPTION:\n\nFrom September 2025 through November 2026\, Stamps Gallery is partnering in a curatorial collaboration with two Ypsilanti-based\, artist-run project spaces led by Stamps alumni: C.Y.N.K. Studios\, directed by Sally Clegg (Lecturer III and Student Exhibition Coordinator\, MFA ’20) and Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20)\; and Sometimes Space\, directed by Nathan Byrne (Lecturer I\, MFA ’21). Each space hosts dozens of artists annually for exhibitions\, performances\, and events\, fostering experimental work and building community. For this project\, Byrne\, Clegg\, and Narula have been commissioned to reimagine the pillars on Division Street that flank the gallery. In response\, they’ve curated six artists to create new work for the pillars over three cycles:\n\nPhase 1 (September 12 - December 12) artists: Amelia Burns (Cranbrook MFA ’23) and Erin McKenna (MFA ’20)\nPhase 2 (January 12 - August 12) artists: Sally Clegg (MFA ’20) and Kim Karlsrud (MFA ’20)\nPhase 3 (September 12 - November 12) artists: Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20) and Nathan Byrne (MFA ’21)\nPhase 2 Curatorial Statement\n\nCurated by Sometimes Space: Sally Clegg (entry pillar)\nCurated by CYNK Studios: Kim Karlsrud (courtyard pillar)\n\nArtists Sally Clegg and Kim Karlsrud wrap the Division Street pillars in highly site-specific ornament unearthed from the overlooked margins of Ann Arbor. On the Courtyard pillar\, Karlsrud scales up photographs of objects found in liminal spaces surrounding campus buildings on Green Road\, which the artist has encrusted in road salt. On the entryway pillar\, Clegg zooms in on tiny fragments of found material from UMich’s famous “rock” to celebrate nearly seven decades of student art and activism. Both artists uplift aggregate of local human activity to reveal tiny worlds of found form. \n\nSally Clegg: Sentimentary Rock\nSentimentary Rock is a composition of paint slag collected from the UMich rock monument at the corner of Washtenaw Avenue and Hill Street. This colorful composite material has been accumulating at the base of the iconic limestone boulder since the mid 1950’s\, when students began a tradition of painting it in acts of protest\, creativity\, and ritual\, sometimes multiple times per week. Akin to byproducts of industry such as “Fordite” (collectable chunks of automotive overspray sometimes called ‘Detroit agate’)\, Sentimentary Rock includes thousands of layers\, each dripped from a palimpsestic public proclamation. When processed\, sculpted\, sealed\, assembled\, and macro-photographed\, the result is this enlarged array of tiny gems\, intended to celebrate the indissoluble student voice. \n\nKim Karlsrud: What Amasses\nWhat Amasses is an assemblage of everyday found objects collected within the Miller Creek watershed\, an urbanized drainage system that encompasses much of the city of Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan campus. Selected objects were immersed in a road salt solution\, allowing delicate crystalline formations to emerge. Road salt is a common material input into these hydrological networks during the winter months and exists in multiple states of refinement\, expression\, coherence\, and fragmentation. Each object was then arranged\, photographed\, and enlarged to recontextualize these materials in ways that invite deeper reflections on how infrastructure and human agency blur notions of the natural and the artificial. \nArtist Statements/Bios\n\nSally Clegg \nSally Clegg is an artist and educator from Pelham\, Massachusetts. Her studio practice is rooted in sculpture and expanded printmaking\, stemming from a fascination with human efforts to make meaning from our relationships to objects. Clegg integrates history\, popular culture\, literature and philosophy as material for artmaking\, leveraging personal anecdote and humor to reveal the complexity\, absurdity\, and theoretical richness at play in our connections to things and to ourselves. \n\nClegg holds an MFA in Art from The University of Michigan Stamps School of Art & Design\, and a BA in Art & English from Goucher College. She has exhibited nationally and internationally\, and her work can be found in permanent collections at Yale University\, The New York Public Library\, and elsewhere. Her artwork and writing has appeared in ASAP/Journal\, BOMB Magazine\, Sculpture Magazine\, and Hyperallergic. She is a lecturer in Art & Design at the University of Michigan. Website / Instagram\n\n\nKim Karlsrud \nKim Karlsrud is the co-founder of Commonstudio\, a collaborative creative practice that develops socio-ecological and spatial interventions\, installations\, and initiatives working with and within urban landscapes. Her work explores the space between art and design\, and is grounded in the concept of the “commons\,” that which is shared\, as well as that which is ordinary\, banal\, and commonplace.\n\nKarlsrud completed her undergraduate degree in Product Design from Otis College of Art and Design and an MFA in Art from the University of Michigan. She is currently an Assistant Visiting Professor in the College of Design at the University of Oregon\, teaching across Art and Landscape Architecture departments. She jointly received the 2014-15 Prince Charitable Trust Rome Prize in Landscape Architecture\, was a 2017 resident at the Headlands Center for the Arts\, and is the 2025-26 Fuller Fieldscape Fellow. Website / Instagram
UID:138032-21903375@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/138032
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20250828T001529
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260520T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260520T190000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Fore-Site (Phase 3): The Stamps Gallery Pillar Project
DESCRIPTION:From September 2025 through August 2026\, Stamps Gallery is partnering in a curatorial collaboration with two Ypsilanti-based\, artist-run project spaces led by Stamps alumni: C.Y.N.K. Studios\, directed by Sally Clegg (Lecturer III and Student Exhibition Coordinator\, MFA ’20) and Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20)\; and Sometimes Space\, directed by Nathan Byrne (Lecturer I\, MFA ’21). Each space hosts dozens of artists annually for exhibitions\, performances\, and events\, fostering experimental work and building community. For this project\, Byrne\, Clegg\, and Narula have been commissioned to reimagine the pillars on Division Street that flank the gallery. In response\, they've curated six artists to create new work for the pillars over three cycles:\nPhase 1 (September 12 - December 12) artists: Amelia Burns (Cranbrook MFA '23) and Erin McKenna (MFA '20)Phase 2 (January 12 - April 12) artists: Sally Clegg (MFA '20) and Kim Karlsrud (MFA '20)Phase 3 (May 12 - August 12) artists: Abhishek Narula (MFA '20) and Nathan Byrne (MFA '21)\nPhase 3 \nCurated by Sometimes Space: Abhishek Narula (entry pillar)Curated by CYNK Studios: Nathan Byrne (courtyard pillar)
UID:138033-21881331@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/138033
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260429T110903
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260520T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260520T180000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Elsa Olander - Becoming: My Journey Through Stamps
DESCRIPTION:Becoming is the senior thesis project of Stamps School of Art & Design student Elsa Olander. It is a multidisciplinary exhibition that traces her artistic evolution from high school student in Kenya to graduating college senior in the U.S. It explores personal growth through material experimentation\, identity formation\, and cultural hybridity. The work features 2-D\, 3-D\, and 4-D work\; each piece serving as a visual artifact of transformation.\n\nBecoming isn’t about arriving. It’s about highlighting the moments that get us there. The doubt\, discovery\, and growth that shape who we are. It’s a reminder to learn from the past and plan for the future\, but most importantly to live in the present. We become who we are not just through all the choices we make\, but through the people we surround ourselves with\, the information we take-in\, and what we choose to believe or question.\n\n“This exhibition is about my growth and process\, but it’s not singular. Many of my family members\, including my mother\, aren’t able to attend my graduation due to the ongoing visa ban affecting several African countries. This show is my way of honoring their presence in my life\, acknowledging where I’ve come from\, and sharing my journey with those who may not be able to witness it in person. My hope is that viewers see these works not just as a portrait of my evolution\, but as an invitation to reflect\, relate\, and reimagine their own paths of becoming.” \n-Elsa Olander\n\nBecoming: My Journey Through Stamps\nExhibition Dates: April 30 – May 22\, 2026\nOpening Reception: Thursday\, April 30\, 5:30 – 8 p.m. (RSVP Recommended)\nDuderstadt Center Gallery
UID:148001-21902708@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/148001
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Duderstadt Center - Gallery, Rm. 1019 Duderstadt Center
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260507T103648
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260520T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260520T193000
SUMMARY:Workshop / Seminar:KYLYN Festival | Jogakbo Fabric Workshop
DESCRIPTION:The Nam Center is excited to support this event with the local fabric artist Kim DeBord in celebration of the AAPi month!\n   \n   Jogakbo\, a traditional Korean form of patchwork\, is a technique for creating wrapping cloth (Bojagi) rooted in resourcefulness and intention. In this hands-on workshop\, artist Kim Debord of Cluster Museum and Invisible Engines will introduce participants to the process of jogakbo. Learn the unique piecework technique that creates a double-sided cloth and take home your own bojagi. All materials will be provided\, and no prior sewing experience is necessary.\n   \n   The Ann Arbor District Library will make every effort to accommodate as many attendees as possible\, but seating and supplies for this event are limited and will be provided on a first-come\, first-served basis.\n   \n   This event is part of the KYLYN AAPI Arts & Culture Festival.\n\n*Accommodation: If there is anything we can do to make this event accessible to you\, please contact us. Please be aware that advance notice is necessary as some accommodations may require more time for the university to arrange.\n   Email: -- ask@aadl.org
UID:148150-21903159@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/148150
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location - 4th Floor Program Room
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260421T085257
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260521T090000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260521T170000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Debbie Thompson Exhibition
DESCRIPTION:Debbie Thompson works predominantly in clay and draws inspiration from the natural world\, which she frequently references in her work. Her interest in ceramics began in high school when she took classes at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills\, Michigan. She later pursued her passion at the University of Michigan School of Art and Design\, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts. She also holds a Master of Arts from Eastern Michigan University and has completed post-graduate studio coursework at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago\, Maryland Institute College of Art\, Rhode Island School of Design\, and Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts.\n\nThompson taught visual art in the Ann Arbor Public Schools for 34 years and has also taught at the University of Michigan School of Education and Washtenaw Community College. She exhibits her work both locally and nationally and was a member of the Clay Gallery. She continues her practice in her home studio and at the Potters Guild in Ann Arbor\, Michigan. She is a member of the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts and the Michigan Ceramic Art Association. Her work is included in the permanent collection of the International Dinnerware Museum.\n\nThompson’s work has been inspired by the natural world since childhood. Although she initially studied biology in college\, she later shifted her focus to visual art. The textures\, colors\, and forms in her pieces are drawn directly from nature.\nSeeds—structures that have enabled plants to move through space and time for over 600 million years—are central to her recent work. They are vital to the continuation of plant life\, and therefore to human survival.\n\nIn this exhibition\, Thompson explores the unseen structures of seeds as revealed through electron microscopy. These images highlight the intricate beauty and ingenuity of nature\, which she interprets through her wall-mounted ceramic sculptures.\n\nAt a time when our planet and its ecosystems face increasing threats\, Thompson’s work serves as a reminder of the importance of preserving the natural world. Recognizing the beauty and significance of these often-unseen forms is a crucial first step toward protecting the life systems on which we all depend.
UID:147884-21902223@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/147884
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:North Campus Research Complex Building 18 - Connection Gallery
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260511T181505
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260521T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260521T190000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Fore-Site (Phase 2): The Stamps Gallery Pillar Project
DESCRIPTION:\n\nFrom September 2025 through November 2026\, Stamps Gallery is partnering in a curatorial collaboration with two Ypsilanti-based\, artist-run project spaces led by Stamps alumni: C.Y.N.K. Studios\, directed by Sally Clegg (Lecturer III and Student Exhibition Coordinator\, MFA ’20) and Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20)\; and Sometimes Space\, directed by Nathan Byrne (Lecturer I\, MFA ’21). Each space hosts dozens of artists annually for exhibitions\, performances\, and events\, fostering experimental work and building community. For this project\, Byrne\, Clegg\, and Narula have been commissioned to reimagine the pillars on Division Street that flank the gallery. In response\, they’ve curated six artists to create new work for the pillars over three cycles:\n\nPhase 1 (September 12 - December 12) artists: Amelia Burns (Cranbrook MFA ’23) and Erin McKenna (MFA ’20)\nPhase 2 (January 12 - August 12) artists: Sally Clegg (MFA ’20) and Kim Karlsrud (MFA ’20)\nPhase 3 (September 12 - November 12) artists: Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20) and Nathan Byrne (MFA ’21)\nPhase 2 Curatorial Statement\n\nCurated by Sometimes Space: Sally Clegg (entry pillar)\nCurated by CYNK Studios: Kim Karlsrud (courtyard pillar)\n\nArtists Sally Clegg and Kim Karlsrud wrap the Division Street pillars in highly site-specific ornament unearthed from the overlooked margins of Ann Arbor. On the Courtyard pillar\, Karlsrud scales up photographs of objects found in liminal spaces surrounding campus buildings on Green Road\, which the artist has encrusted in road salt. On the entryway pillar\, Clegg zooms in on tiny fragments of found material from UMich’s famous “rock” to celebrate nearly seven decades of student art and activism. Both artists uplift aggregate of local human activity to reveal tiny worlds of found form. \n\nSally Clegg: Sentimentary Rock\nSentimentary Rock is a composition of paint slag collected from the UMich rock monument at the corner of Washtenaw Avenue and Hill Street. This colorful composite material has been accumulating at the base of the iconic limestone boulder since the mid 1950’s\, when students began a tradition of painting it in acts of protest\, creativity\, and ritual\, sometimes multiple times per week. Akin to byproducts of industry such as “Fordite” (collectable chunks of automotive overspray sometimes called ‘Detroit agate’)\, Sentimentary Rock includes thousands of layers\, each dripped from a palimpsestic public proclamation. When processed\, sculpted\, sealed\, assembled\, and macro-photographed\, the result is this enlarged array of tiny gems\, intended to celebrate the indissoluble student voice. \n\nKim Karlsrud: What Amasses\nWhat Amasses is an assemblage of everyday found objects collected within the Miller Creek watershed\, an urbanized drainage system that encompasses much of the city of Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan campus. Selected objects were immersed in a road salt solution\, allowing delicate crystalline formations to emerge. Road salt is a common material input into these hydrological networks during the winter months and exists in multiple states of refinement\, expression\, coherence\, and fragmentation. Each object was then arranged\, photographed\, and enlarged to recontextualize these materials in ways that invite deeper reflections on how infrastructure and human agency blur notions of the natural and the artificial. \nArtist Statements/Bios\n\nSally Clegg \nSally Clegg is an artist and educator from Pelham\, Massachusetts. Her studio practice is rooted in sculpture and expanded printmaking\, stemming from a fascination with human efforts to make meaning from our relationships to objects. Clegg integrates history\, popular culture\, literature and philosophy as material for artmaking\, leveraging personal anecdote and humor to reveal the complexity\, absurdity\, and theoretical richness at play in our connections to things and to ourselves. \n\nClegg holds an MFA in Art from The University of Michigan Stamps School of Art & Design\, and a BA in Art & English from Goucher College. She has exhibited nationally and internationally\, and her work can be found in permanent collections at Yale University\, The New York Public Library\, and elsewhere. Her artwork and writing has appeared in ASAP/Journal\, BOMB Magazine\, Sculpture Magazine\, and Hyperallergic. She is a lecturer in Art & Design at the University of Michigan. Website / Instagram\n\n\nKim Karlsrud \nKim Karlsrud is the co-founder of Commonstudio\, a collaborative creative practice that develops socio-ecological and spatial interventions\, installations\, and initiatives working with and within urban landscapes. Her work explores the space between art and design\, and is grounded in the concept of the “commons\,” that which is shared\, as well as that which is ordinary\, banal\, and commonplace.\n\nKarlsrud completed her undergraduate degree in Product Design from Otis College of Art and Design and an MFA in Art from the University of Michigan. She is currently an Assistant Visiting Professor in the College of Design at the University of Oregon\, teaching across Art and Landscape Architecture departments. She jointly received the 2014-15 Prince Charitable Trust Rome Prize in Landscape Architecture\, was a 2017 resident at the Headlands Center for the Arts\, and is the 2025-26 Fuller Fieldscape Fellow. Website / Instagram
UID:138032-21903376@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/138032
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20250828T001529
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260521T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260521T190000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Fore-Site (Phase 3): The Stamps Gallery Pillar Project
DESCRIPTION:From September 2025 through August 2026\, Stamps Gallery is partnering in a curatorial collaboration with two Ypsilanti-based\, artist-run project spaces led by Stamps alumni: C.Y.N.K. Studios\, directed by Sally Clegg (Lecturer III and Student Exhibition Coordinator\, MFA ’20) and Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20)\; and Sometimes Space\, directed by Nathan Byrne (Lecturer I\, MFA ’21). Each space hosts dozens of artists annually for exhibitions\, performances\, and events\, fostering experimental work and building community. For this project\, Byrne\, Clegg\, and Narula have been commissioned to reimagine the pillars on Division Street that flank the gallery. In response\, they've curated six artists to create new work for the pillars over three cycles:\nPhase 1 (September 12 - December 12) artists: Amelia Burns (Cranbrook MFA '23) and Erin McKenna (MFA '20)Phase 2 (January 12 - April 12) artists: Sally Clegg (MFA '20) and Kim Karlsrud (MFA '20)Phase 3 (May 12 - August 12) artists: Abhishek Narula (MFA '20) and Nathan Byrne (MFA '21)\nPhase 3 \nCurated by Sometimes Space: Abhishek Narula (entry pillar)Curated by CYNK Studios: Nathan Byrne (courtyard pillar)
UID:138033-21881332@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/138033
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260429T110903
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260521T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260521T180000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Elsa Olander - Becoming: My Journey Through Stamps
DESCRIPTION:Becoming is the senior thesis project of Stamps School of Art & Design student Elsa Olander. It is a multidisciplinary exhibition that traces her artistic evolution from high school student in Kenya to graduating college senior in the U.S. It explores personal growth through material experimentation\, identity formation\, and cultural hybridity. The work features 2-D\, 3-D\, and 4-D work\; each piece serving as a visual artifact of transformation.\n\nBecoming isn’t about arriving. It’s about highlighting the moments that get us there. The doubt\, discovery\, and growth that shape who we are. It’s a reminder to learn from the past and plan for the future\, but most importantly to live in the present. We become who we are not just through all the choices we make\, but through the people we surround ourselves with\, the information we take-in\, and what we choose to believe or question.\n\n“This exhibition is about my growth and process\, but it’s not singular. Many of my family members\, including my mother\, aren’t able to attend my graduation due to the ongoing visa ban affecting several African countries. This show is my way of honoring their presence in my life\, acknowledging where I’ve come from\, and sharing my journey with those who may not be able to witness it in person. My hope is that viewers see these works not just as a portrait of my evolution\, but as an invitation to reflect\, relate\, and reimagine their own paths of becoming.” \n-Elsa Olander\n\nBecoming: My Journey Through Stamps\nExhibition Dates: April 30 – May 22\, 2026\nOpening Reception: Thursday\, April 30\, 5:30 – 8 p.m. (RSVP Recommended)\nDuderstadt Center Gallery
UID:148001-21902709@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/148001
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Duderstadt Center - Gallery, Rm. 1019 Duderstadt Center
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260421T085257
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260522T090000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260522T170000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Debbie Thompson Exhibition
DESCRIPTION:Debbie Thompson works predominantly in clay and draws inspiration from the natural world\, which she frequently references in her work. Her interest in ceramics began in high school when she took classes at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills\, Michigan. She later pursued her passion at the University of Michigan School of Art and Design\, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts. She also holds a Master of Arts from Eastern Michigan University and has completed post-graduate studio coursework at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago\, Maryland Institute College of Art\, Rhode Island School of Design\, and Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts.\n\nThompson taught visual art in the Ann Arbor Public Schools for 34 years and has also taught at the University of Michigan School of Education and Washtenaw Community College. She exhibits her work both locally and nationally and was a member of the Clay Gallery. She continues her practice in her home studio and at the Potters Guild in Ann Arbor\, Michigan. She is a member of the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts and the Michigan Ceramic Art Association. Her work is included in the permanent collection of the International Dinnerware Museum.\n\nThompson’s work has been inspired by the natural world since childhood. Although she initially studied biology in college\, she later shifted her focus to visual art. The textures\, colors\, and forms in her pieces are drawn directly from nature.\nSeeds—structures that have enabled plants to move through space and time for over 600 million years—are central to her recent work. They are vital to the continuation of plant life\, and therefore to human survival.\n\nIn this exhibition\, Thompson explores the unseen structures of seeds as revealed through electron microscopy. These images highlight the intricate beauty and ingenuity of nature\, which she interprets through her wall-mounted ceramic sculptures.\n\nAt a time when our planet and its ecosystems face increasing threats\, Thompson’s work serves as a reminder of the importance of preserving the natural world. Recognizing the beauty and significance of these often-unseen forms is a crucial first step toward protecting the life systems on which we all depend.
UID:147884-21902224@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/147884
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:North Campus Research Complex Building 18 - Connection Gallery
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260511T181505
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260522T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260522T190000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Fore-Site (Phase 2): The Stamps Gallery Pillar Project
DESCRIPTION:\n\nFrom September 2025 through November 2026\, Stamps Gallery is partnering in a curatorial collaboration with two Ypsilanti-based\, artist-run project spaces led by Stamps alumni: C.Y.N.K. Studios\, directed by Sally Clegg (Lecturer III and Student Exhibition Coordinator\, MFA ’20) and Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20)\; and Sometimes Space\, directed by Nathan Byrne (Lecturer I\, MFA ’21). Each space hosts dozens of artists annually for exhibitions\, performances\, and events\, fostering experimental work and building community. For this project\, Byrne\, Clegg\, and Narula have been commissioned to reimagine the pillars on Division Street that flank the gallery. In response\, they’ve curated six artists to create new work for the pillars over three cycles:\n\nPhase 1 (September 12 - December 12) artists: Amelia Burns (Cranbrook MFA ’23) and Erin McKenna (MFA ’20)\nPhase 2 (January 12 - August 12) artists: Sally Clegg (MFA ’20) and Kim Karlsrud (MFA ’20)\nPhase 3 (September 12 - November 12) artists: Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20) and Nathan Byrne (MFA ’21)\nPhase 2 Curatorial Statement\n\nCurated by Sometimes Space: Sally Clegg (entry pillar)\nCurated by CYNK Studios: Kim Karlsrud (courtyard pillar)\n\nArtists Sally Clegg and Kim Karlsrud wrap the Division Street pillars in highly site-specific ornament unearthed from the overlooked margins of Ann Arbor. On the Courtyard pillar\, Karlsrud scales up photographs of objects found in liminal spaces surrounding campus buildings on Green Road\, which the artist has encrusted in road salt. On the entryway pillar\, Clegg zooms in on tiny fragments of found material from UMich’s famous “rock” to celebrate nearly seven decades of student art and activism. Both artists uplift aggregate of local human activity to reveal tiny worlds of found form. \n\nSally Clegg: Sentimentary Rock\nSentimentary Rock is a composition of paint slag collected from the UMich rock monument at the corner of Washtenaw Avenue and Hill Street. This colorful composite material has been accumulating at the base of the iconic limestone boulder since the mid 1950’s\, when students began a tradition of painting it in acts of protest\, creativity\, and ritual\, sometimes multiple times per week. Akin to byproducts of industry such as “Fordite” (collectable chunks of automotive overspray sometimes called ‘Detroit agate’)\, Sentimentary Rock includes thousands of layers\, each dripped from a palimpsestic public proclamation. When processed\, sculpted\, sealed\, assembled\, and macro-photographed\, the result is this enlarged array of tiny gems\, intended to celebrate the indissoluble student voice. \n\nKim Karlsrud: What Amasses\nWhat Amasses is an assemblage of everyday found objects collected within the Miller Creek watershed\, an urbanized drainage system that encompasses much of the city of Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan campus. Selected objects were immersed in a road salt solution\, allowing delicate crystalline formations to emerge. Road salt is a common material input into these hydrological networks during the winter months and exists in multiple states of refinement\, expression\, coherence\, and fragmentation. Each object was then arranged\, photographed\, and enlarged to recontextualize these materials in ways that invite deeper reflections on how infrastructure and human agency blur notions of the natural and the artificial. \nArtist Statements/Bios\n\nSally Clegg \nSally Clegg is an artist and educator from Pelham\, Massachusetts. Her studio practice is rooted in sculpture and expanded printmaking\, stemming from a fascination with human efforts to make meaning from our relationships to objects. Clegg integrates history\, popular culture\, literature and philosophy as material for artmaking\, leveraging personal anecdote and humor to reveal the complexity\, absurdity\, and theoretical richness at play in our connections to things and to ourselves. \n\nClegg holds an MFA in Art from The University of Michigan Stamps School of Art & Design\, and a BA in Art & English from Goucher College. She has exhibited nationally and internationally\, and her work can be found in permanent collections at Yale University\, The New York Public Library\, and elsewhere. Her artwork and writing has appeared in ASAP/Journal\, BOMB Magazine\, Sculpture Magazine\, and Hyperallergic. She is a lecturer in Art & Design at the University of Michigan. Website / Instagram\n\n\nKim Karlsrud \nKim Karlsrud is the co-founder of Commonstudio\, a collaborative creative practice that develops socio-ecological and spatial interventions\, installations\, and initiatives working with and within urban landscapes. Her work explores the space between art and design\, and is grounded in the concept of the “commons\,” that which is shared\, as well as that which is ordinary\, banal\, and commonplace.\n\nKarlsrud completed her undergraduate degree in Product Design from Otis College of Art and Design and an MFA in Art from the University of Michigan. She is currently an Assistant Visiting Professor in the College of Design at the University of Oregon\, teaching across Art and Landscape Architecture departments. She jointly received the 2014-15 Prince Charitable Trust Rome Prize in Landscape Architecture\, was a 2017 resident at the Headlands Center for the Arts\, and is the 2025-26 Fuller Fieldscape Fellow. Website / Instagram
UID:138032-21903377@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/138032
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20250828T001529
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260522T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260522T190000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Fore-Site (Phase 3): The Stamps Gallery Pillar Project
DESCRIPTION:From September 2025 through August 2026\, Stamps Gallery is partnering in a curatorial collaboration with two Ypsilanti-based\, artist-run project spaces led by Stamps alumni: C.Y.N.K. Studios\, directed by Sally Clegg (Lecturer III and Student Exhibition Coordinator\, MFA ’20) and Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20)\; and Sometimes Space\, directed by Nathan Byrne (Lecturer I\, MFA ’21). Each space hosts dozens of artists annually for exhibitions\, performances\, and events\, fostering experimental work and building community. For this project\, Byrne\, Clegg\, and Narula have been commissioned to reimagine the pillars on Division Street that flank the gallery. In response\, they've curated six artists to create new work for the pillars over three cycles:\nPhase 1 (September 12 - December 12) artists: Amelia Burns (Cranbrook MFA '23) and Erin McKenna (MFA '20)Phase 2 (January 12 - April 12) artists: Sally Clegg (MFA '20) and Kim Karlsrud (MFA '20)Phase 3 (May 12 - August 12) artists: Abhishek Narula (MFA '20) and Nathan Byrne (MFA '21)\nPhase 3 \nCurated by Sometimes Space: Abhishek Narula (entry pillar)Curated by CYNK Studios: Nathan Byrne (courtyard pillar)
UID:138033-21881333@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/138033
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260429T110903
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260522T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260522T180000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Elsa Olander - Becoming: My Journey Through Stamps
DESCRIPTION:Becoming is the senior thesis project of Stamps School of Art & Design student Elsa Olander. It is a multidisciplinary exhibition that traces her artistic evolution from high school student in Kenya to graduating college senior in the U.S. It explores personal growth through material experimentation\, identity formation\, and cultural hybridity. The work features 2-D\, 3-D\, and 4-D work\; each piece serving as a visual artifact of transformation.\n\nBecoming isn’t about arriving. It’s about highlighting the moments that get us there. The doubt\, discovery\, and growth that shape who we are. It’s a reminder to learn from the past and plan for the future\, but most importantly to live in the present. We become who we are not just through all the choices we make\, but through the people we surround ourselves with\, the information we take-in\, and what we choose to believe or question.\n\n“This exhibition is about my growth and process\, but it’s not singular. Many of my family members\, including my mother\, aren’t able to attend my graduation due to the ongoing visa ban affecting several African countries. This show is my way of honoring their presence in my life\, acknowledging where I’ve come from\, and sharing my journey with those who may not be able to witness it in person. My hope is that viewers see these works not just as a portrait of my evolution\, but as an invitation to reflect\, relate\, and reimagine their own paths of becoming.” \n-Elsa Olander\n\nBecoming: My Journey Through Stamps\nExhibition Dates: April 30 – May 22\, 2026\nOpening Reception: Thursday\, April 30\, 5:30 – 8 p.m. (RSVP Recommended)\nDuderstadt Center Gallery
UID:148001-21902710@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/148001
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Duderstadt Center - Gallery, Rm. 1019 Duderstadt Center
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260511T181505
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260523T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260523T190000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Fore-Site (Phase 2): The Stamps Gallery Pillar Project
DESCRIPTION:\n\nFrom September 2025 through November 2026\, Stamps Gallery is partnering in a curatorial collaboration with two Ypsilanti-based\, artist-run project spaces led by Stamps alumni: C.Y.N.K. Studios\, directed by Sally Clegg (Lecturer III and Student Exhibition Coordinator\, MFA ’20) and Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20)\; and Sometimes Space\, directed by Nathan Byrne (Lecturer I\, MFA ’21). Each space hosts dozens of artists annually for exhibitions\, performances\, and events\, fostering experimental work and building community. For this project\, Byrne\, Clegg\, and Narula have been commissioned to reimagine the pillars on Division Street that flank the gallery. In response\, they’ve curated six artists to create new work for the pillars over three cycles:\n\nPhase 1 (September 12 - December 12) artists: Amelia Burns (Cranbrook MFA ’23) and Erin McKenna (MFA ’20)\nPhase 2 (January 12 - August 12) artists: Sally Clegg (MFA ’20) and Kim Karlsrud (MFA ’20)\nPhase 3 (September 12 - November 12) artists: Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20) and Nathan Byrne (MFA ’21)\nPhase 2 Curatorial Statement\n\nCurated by Sometimes Space: Sally Clegg (entry pillar)\nCurated by CYNK Studios: Kim Karlsrud (courtyard pillar)\n\nArtists Sally Clegg and Kim Karlsrud wrap the Division Street pillars in highly site-specific ornament unearthed from the overlooked margins of Ann Arbor. On the Courtyard pillar\, Karlsrud scales up photographs of objects found in liminal spaces surrounding campus buildings on Green Road\, which the artist has encrusted in road salt. On the entryway pillar\, Clegg zooms in on tiny fragments of found material from UMich’s famous “rock” to celebrate nearly seven decades of student art and activism. Both artists uplift aggregate of local human activity to reveal tiny worlds of found form. \n\nSally Clegg: Sentimentary Rock\nSentimentary Rock is a composition of paint slag collected from the UMich rock monument at the corner of Washtenaw Avenue and Hill Street. This colorful composite material has been accumulating at the base of the iconic limestone boulder since the mid 1950’s\, when students began a tradition of painting it in acts of protest\, creativity\, and ritual\, sometimes multiple times per week. Akin to byproducts of industry such as “Fordite” (collectable chunks of automotive overspray sometimes called ‘Detroit agate’)\, Sentimentary Rock includes thousands of layers\, each dripped from a palimpsestic public proclamation. When processed\, sculpted\, sealed\, assembled\, and macro-photographed\, the result is this enlarged array of tiny gems\, intended to celebrate the indissoluble student voice. \n\nKim Karlsrud: What Amasses\nWhat Amasses is an assemblage of everyday found objects collected within the Miller Creek watershed\, an urbanized drainage system that encompasses much of the city of Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan campus. Selected objects were immersed in a road salt solution\, allowing delicate crystalline formations to emerge. Road salt is a common material input into these hydrological networks during the winter months and exists in multiple states of refinement\, expression\, coherence\, and fragmentation. Each object was then arranged\, photographed\, and enlarged to recontextualize these materials in ways that invite deeper reflections on how infrastructure and human agency blur notions of the natural and the artificial. \nArtist Statements/Bios\n\nSally Clegg \nSally Clegg is an artist and educator from Pelham\, Massachusetts. Her studio practice is rooted in sculpture and expanded printmaking\, stemming from a fascination with human efforts to make meaning from our relationships to objects. Clegg integrates history\, popular culture\, literature and philosophy as material for artmaking\, leveraging personal anecdote and humor to reveal the complexity\, absurdity\, and theoretical richness at play in our connections to things and to ourselves. \n\nClegg holds an MFA in Art from The University of Michigan Stamps School of Art & Design\, and a BA in Art & English from Goucher College. She has exhibited nationally and internationally\, and her work can be found in permanent collections at Yale University\, The New York Public Library\, and elsewhere. Her artwork and writing has appeared in ASAP/Journal\, BOMB Magazine\, Sculpture Magazine\, and Hyperallergic. She is a lecturer in Art & Design at the University of Michigan. Website / Instagram\n\n\nKim Karlsrud \nKim Karlsrud is the co-founder of Commonstudio\, a collaborative creative practice that develops socio-ecological and spatial interventions\, installations\, and initiatives working with and within urban landscapes. Her work explores the space between art and design\, and is grounded in the concept of the “commons\,” that which is shared\, as well as that which is ordinary\, banal\, and commonplace.\n\nKarlsrud completed her undergraduate degree in Product Design from Otis College of Art and Design and an MFA in Art from the University of Michigan. She is currently an Assistant Visiting Professor in the College of Design at the University of Oregon\, teaching across Art and Landscape Architecture departments. She jointly received the 2014-15 Prince Charitable Trust Rome Prize in Landscape Architecture\, was a 2017 resident at the Headlands Center for the Arts\, and is the 2025-26 Fuller Fieldscape Fellow. Website / Instagram
UID:138032-21903378@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/138032
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20250828T001529
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260523T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260523T190000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Fore-Site (Phase 3): The Stamps Gallery Pillar Project
DESCRIPTION:From September 2025 through August 2026\, Stamps Gallery is partnering in a curatorial collaboration with two Ypsilanti-based\, artist-run project spaces led by Stamps alumni: C.Y.N.K. Studios\, directed by Sally Clegg (Lecturer III and Student Exhibition Coordinator\, MFA ’20) and Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20)\; and Sometimes Space\, directed by Nathan Byrne (Lecturer I\, MFA ’21). Each space hosts dozens of artists annually for exhibitions\, performances\, and events\, fostering experimental work and building community. For this project\, Byrne\, Clegg\, and Narula have been commissioned to reimagine the pillars on Division Street that flank the gallery. In response\, they've curated six artists to create new work for the pillars over three cycles:\nPhase 1 (September 12 - December 12) artists: Amelia Burns (Cranbrook MFA '23) and Erin McKenna (MFA '20)Phase 2 (January 12 - April 12) artists: Sally Clegg (MFA '20) and Kim Karlsrud (MFA '20)Phase 3 (May 12 - August 12) artists: Abhishek Narula (MFA '20) and Nathan Byrne (MFA '21)\nPhase 3 \nCurated by Sometimes Space: Abhishek Narula (entry pillar)Curated by CYNK Studios: Nathan Byrne (courtyard pillar)
UID:138033-21881334@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/138033
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260421T085257
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260525T090000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260525T170000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Debbie Thompson Exhibition
DESCRIPTION:Debbie Thompson works predominantly in clay and draws inspiration from the natural world\, which she frequently references in her work. Her interest in ceramics began in high school when she took classes at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills\, Michigan. She later pursued her passion at the University of Michigan School of Art and Design\, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts. She also holds a Master of Arts from Eastern Michigan University and has completed post-graduate studio coursework at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago\, Maryland Institute College of Art\, Rhode Island School of Design\, and Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts.\n\nThompson taught visual art in the Ann Arbor Public Schools for 34 years and has also taught at the University of Michigan School of Education and Washtenaw Community College. She exhibits her work both locally and nationally and was a member of the Clay Gallery. She continues her practice in her home studio and at the Potters Guild in Ann Arbor\, Michigan. She is a member of the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts and the Michigan Ceramic Art Association. Her work is included in the permanent collection of the International Dinnerware Museum.\n\nThompson’s work has been inspired by the natural world since childhood. Although she initially studied biology in college\, she later shifted her focus to visual art. The textures\, colors\, and forms in her pieces are drawn directly from nature.\nSeeds—structures that have enabled plants to move through space and time for over 600 million years—are central to her recent work. They are vital to the continuation of plant life\, and therefore to human survival.\n\nIn this exhibition\, Thompson explores the unseen structures of seeds as revealed through electron microscopy. These images highlight the intricate beauty and ingenuity of nature\, which she interprets through her wall-mounted ceramic sculptures.\n\nAt a time when our planet and its ecosystems face increasing threats\, Thompson’s work serves as a reminder of the importance of preserving the natural world. Recognizing the beauty and significance of these often-unseen forms is a crucial first step toward protecting the life systems on which we all depend.
UID:147884-21902227@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/147884
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:North Campus Research Complex Building 18 - Connection Gallery
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260421T085257
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260526T090000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260526T170000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Debbie Thompson Exhibition
DESCRIPTION:Debbie Thompson works predominantly in clay and draws inspiration from the natural world\, which she frequently references in her work. Her interest in ceramics began in high school when she took classes at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills\, Michigan. She later pursued her passion at the University of Michigan School of Art and Design\, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts. She also holds a Master of Arts from Eastern Michigan University and has completed post-graduate studio coursework at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago\, Maryland Institute College of Art\, Rhode Island School of Design\, and Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts.\n\nThompson taught visual art in the Ann Arbor Public Schools for 34 years and has also taught at the University of Michigan School of Education and Washtenaw Community College. She exhibits her work both locally and nationally and was a member of the Clay Gallery. She continues her practice in her home studio and at the Potters Guild in Ann Arbor\, Michigan. She is a member of the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts and the Michigan Ceramic Art Association. Her work is included in the permanent collection of the International Dinnerware Museum.\n\nThompson’s work has been inspired by the natural world since childhood. Although she initially studied biology in college\, she later shifted her focus to visual art. The textures\, colors\, and forms in her pieces are drawn directly from nature.\nSeeds—structures that have enabled plants to move through space and time for over 600 million years—are central to her recent work. They are vital to the continuation of plant life\, and therefore to human survival.\n\nIn this exhibition\, Thompson explores the unseen structures of seeds as revealed through electron microscopy. These images highlight the intricate beauty and ingenuity of nature\, which she interprets through her wall-mounted ceramic sculptures.\n\nAt a time when our planet and its ecosystems face increasing threats\, Thompson’s work serves as a reminder of the importance of preserving the natural world. Recognizing the beauty and significance of these often-unseen forms is a crucial first step toward protecting the life systems on which we all depend.
UID:147884-21902228@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/147884
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:North Campus Research Complex Building 18 - Connection Gallery
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260421T085257
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260527T090000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260527T170000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Debbie Thompson Exhibition
DESCRIPTION:Debbie Thompson works predominantly in clay and draws inspiration from the natural world\, which she frequently references in her work. Her interest in ceramics began in high school when she took classes at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills\, Michigan. She later pursued her passion at the University of Michigan School of Art and Design\, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts. She also holds a Master of Arts from Eastern Michigan University and has completed post-graduate studio coursework at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago\, Maryland Institute College of Art\, Rhode Island School of Design\, and Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts.\n\nThompson taught visual art in the Ann Arbor Public Schools for 34 years and has also taught at the University of Michigan School of Education and Washtenaw Community College. She exhibits her work both locally and nationally and was a member of the Clay Gallery. She continues her practice in her home studio and at the Potters Guild in Ann Arbor\, Michigan. She is a member of the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts and the Michigan Ceramic Art Association. Her work is included in the permanent collection of the International Dinnerware Museum.\n\nThompson’s work has been inspired by the natural world since childhood. Although she initially studied biology in college\, she later shifted her focus to visual art. The textures\, colors\, and forms in her pieces are drawn directly from nature.\nSeeds—structures that have enabled plants to move through space and time for over 600 million years—are central to her recent work. They are vital to the continuation of plant life\, and therefore to human survival.\n\nIn this exhibition\, Thompson explores the unseen structures of seeds as revealed through electron microscopy. These images highlight the intricate beauty and ingenuity of nature\, which she interprets through her wall-mounted ceramic sculptures.\n\nAt a time when our planet and its ecosystems face increasing threats\, Thompson’s work serves as a reminder of the importance of preserving the natural world. Recognizing the beauty and significance of these often-unseen forms is a crucial first step toward protecting the life systems on which we all depend.
UID:147884-21902229@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/147884
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:North Campus Research Complex Building 18 - Connection Gallery
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260511T181505
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260527T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260527T190000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Fore-Site (Phase 2): The Stamps Gallery Pillar Project
DESCRIPTION:\n\nFrom September 2025 through November 2026\, Stamps Gallery is partnering in a curatorial collaboration with two Ypsilanti-based\, artist-run project spaces led by Stamps alumni: C.Y.N.K. Studios\, directed by Sally Clegg (Lecturer III and Student Exhibition Coordinator\, MFA ’20) and Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20)\; and Sometimes Space\, directed by Nathan Byrne (Lecturer I\, MFA ’21). Each space hosts dozens of artists annually for exhibitions\, performances\, and events\, fostering experimental work and building community. For this project\, Byrne\, Clegg\, and Narula have been commissioned to reimagine the pillars on Division Street that flank the gallery. In response\, they’ve curated six artists to create new work for the pillars over three cycles:\n\nPhase 1 (September 12 - December 12) artists: Amelia Burns (Cranbrook MFA ’23) and Erin McKenna (MFA ’20)\nPhase 2 (January 12 - August 12) artists: Sally Clegg (MFA ’20) and Kim Karlsrud (MFA ’20)\nPhase 3 (September 12 - November 12) artists: Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20) and Nathan Byrne (MFA ’21)\nPhase 2 Curatorial Statement\n\nCurated by Sometimes Space: Sally Clegg (entry pillar)\nCurated by CYNK Studios: Kim Karlsrud (courtyard pillar)\n\nArtists Sally Clegg and Kim Karlsrud wrap the Division Street pillars in highly site-specific ornament unearthed from the overlooked margins of Ann Arbor. On the Courtyard pillar\, Karlsrud scales up photographs of objects found in liminal spaces surrounding campus buildings on Green Road\, which the artist has encrusted in road salt. On the entryway pillar\, Clegg zooms in on tiny fragments of found material from UMich’s famous “rock” to celebrate nearly seven decades of student art and activism. Both artists uplift aggregate of local human activity to reveal tiny worlds of found form. \n\nSally Clegg: Sentimentary Rock\nSentimentary Rock is a composition of paint slag collected from the UMich rock monument at the corner of Washtenaw Avenue and Hill Street. This colorful composite material has been accumulating at the base of the iconic limestone boulder since the mid 1950’s\, when students began a tradition of painting it in acts of protest\, creativity\, and ritual\, sometimes multiple times per week. Akin to byproducts of industry such as “Fordite” (collectable chunks of automotive overspray sometimes called ‘Detroit agate’)\, Sentimentary Rock includes thousands of layers\, each dripped from a palimpsestic public proclamation. When processed\, sculpted\, sealed\, assembled\, and macro-photographed\, the result is this enlarged array of tiny gems\, intended to celebrate the indissoluble student voice. \n\nKim Karlsrud: What Amasses\nWhat Amasses is an assemblage of everyday found objects collected within the Miller Creek watershed\, an urbanized drainage system that encompasses much of the city of Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan campus. Selected objects were immersed in a road salt solution\, allowing delicate crystalline formations to emerge. Road salt is a common material input into these hydrological networks during the winter months and exists in multiple states of refinement\, expression\, coherence\, and fragmentation. Each object was then arranged\, photographed\, and enlarged to recontextualize these materials in ways that invite deeper reflections on how infrastructure and human agency blur notions of the natural and the artificial. \nArtist Statements/Bios\n\nSally Clegg \nSally Clegg is an artist and educator from Pelham\, Massachusetts. Her studio practice is rooted in sculpture and expanded printmaking\, stemming from a fascination with human efforts to make meaning from our relationships to objects. Clegg integrates history\, popular culture\, literature and philosophy as material for artmaking\, leveraging personal anecdote and humor to reveal the complexity\, absurdity\, and theoretical richness at play in our connections to things and to ourselves. \n\nClegg holds an MFA in Art from The University of Michigan Stamps School of Art & Design\, and a BA in Art & English from Goucher College. She has exhibited nationally and internationally\, and her work can be found in permanent collections at Yale University\, The New York Public Library\, and elsewhere. Her artwork and writing has appeared in ASAP/Journal\, BOMB Magazine\, Sculpture Magazine\, and Hyperallergic. She is a lecturer in Art & Design at the University of Michigan. Website / Instagram\n\n\nKim Karlsrud \nKim Karlsrud is the co-founder of Commonstudio\, a collaborative creative practice that develops socio-ecological and spatial interventions\, installations\, and initiatives working with and within urban landscapes. Her work explores the space between art and design\, and is grounded in the concept of the “commons\,” that which is shared\, as well as that which is ordinary\, banal\, and commonplace.\n\nKarlsrud completed her undergraduate degree in Product Design from Otis College of Art and Design and an MFA in Art from the University of Michigan. She is currently an Assistant Visiting Professor in the College of Design at the University of Oregon\, teaching across Art and Landscape Architecture departments. She jointly received the 2014-15 Prince Charitable Trust Rome Prize in Landscape Architecture\, was a 2017 resident at the Headlands Center for the Arts\, and is the 2025-26 Fuller Fieldscape Fellow. Website / Instagram
UID:138032-21903379@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/138032
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20250828T001529
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260527T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260527T190000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Fore-Site (Phase 3): The Stamps Gallery Pillar Project
DESCRIPTION:From September 2025 through August 2026\, Stamps Gallery is partnering in a curatorial collaboration with two Ypsilanti-based\, artist-run project spaces led by Stamps alumni: C.Y.N.K. Studios\, directed by Sally Clegg (Lecturer III and Student Exhibition Coordinator\, MFA ’20) and Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20)\; and Sometimes Space\, directed by Nathan Byrne (Lecturer I\, MFA ’21). Each space hosts dozens of artists annually for exhibitions\, performances\, and events\, fostering experimental work and building community. For this project\, Byrne\, Clegg\, and Narula have been commissioned to reimagine the pillars on Division Street that flank the gallery. In response\, they've curated six artists to create new work for the pillars over three cycles:\nPhase 1 (September 12 - December 12) artists: Amelia Burns (Cranbrook MFA '23) and Erin McKenna (MFA '20)Phase 2 (January 12 - April 12) artists: Sally Clegg (MFA '20) and Kim Karlsrud (MFA '20)Phase 3 (May 12 - August 12) artists: Abhishek Narula (MFA '20) and Nathan Byrne (MFA '21)\nPhase 3 \nCurated by Sometimes Space: Abhishek Narula (entry pillar)Curated by CYNK Studios: Nathan Byrne (courtyard pillar)
UID:138033-21881335@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/138033
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260421T085257
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260528T090000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260528T170000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Debbie Thompson Exhibition
DESCRIPTION:Debbie Thompson works predominantly in clay and draws inspiration from the natural world\, which she frequently references in her work. Her interest in ceramics began in high school when she took classes at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills\, Michigan. She later pursued her passion at the University of Michigan School of Art and Design\, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts. She also holds a Master of Arts from Eastern Michigan University and has completed post-graduate studio coursework at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago\, Maryland Institute College of Art\, Rhode Island School of Design\, and Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts.\n\nThompson taught visual art in the Ann Arbor Public Schools for 34 years and has also taught at the University of Michigan School of Education and Washtenaw Community College. She exhibits her work both locally and nationally and was a member of the Clay Gallery. She continues her practice in her home studio and at the Potters Guild in Ann Arbor\, Michigan. She is a member of the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts and the Michigan Ceramic Art Association. Her work is included in the permanent collection of the International Dinnerware Museum.\n\nThompson’s work has been inspired by the natural world since childhood. Although she initially studied biology in college\, she later shifted her focus to visual art. The textures\, colors\, and forms in her pieces are drawn directly from nature.\nSeeds—structures that have enabled plants to move through space and time for over 600 million years—are central to her recent work. They are vital to the continuation of plant life\, and therefore to human survival.\n\nIn this exhibition\, Thompson explores the unseen structures of seeds as revealed through electron microscopy. These images highlight the intricate beauty and ingenuity of nature\, which she interprets through her wall-mounted ceramic sculptures.\n\nAt a time when our planet and its ecosystems face increasing threats\, Thompson’s work serves as a reminder of the importance of preserving the natural world. Recognizing the beauty and significance of these often-unseen forms is a crucial first step toward protecting the life systems on which we all depend.
UID:147884-21902230@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/147884
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:North Campus Research Complex Building 18 - Connection Gallery
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260511T181505
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260528T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260528T190000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Fore-Site (Phase 2): The Stamps Gallery Pillar Project
DESCRIPTION:\n\nFrom September 2025 through November 2026\, Stamps Gallery is partnering in a curatorial collaboration with two Ypsilanti-based\, artist-run project spaces led by Stamps alumni: C.Y.N.K. Studios\, directed by Sally Clegg (Lecturer III and Student Exhibition Coordinator\, MFA ’20) and Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20)\; and Sometimes Space\, directed by Nathan Byrne (Lecturer I\, MFA ’21). Each space hosts dozens of artists annually for exhibitions\, performances\, and events\, fostering experimental work and building community. For this project\, Byrne\, Clegg\, and Narula have been commissioned to reimagine the pillars on Division Street that flank the gallery. In response\, they’ve curated six artists to create new work for the pillars over three cycles:\n\nPhase 1 (September 12 - December 12) artists: Amelia Burns (Cranbrook MFA ’23) and Erin McKenna (MFA ’20)\nPhase 2 (January 12 - August 12) artists: Sally Clegg (MFA ’20) and Kim Karlsrud (MFA ’20)\nPhase 3 (September 12 - November 12) artists: Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20) and Nathan Byrne (MFA ’21)\nPhase 2 Curatorial Statement\n\nCurated by Sometimes Space: Sally Clegg (entry pillar)\nCurated by CYNK Studios: Kim Karlsrud (courtyard pillar)\n\nArtists Sally Clegg and Kim Karlsrud wrap the Division Street pillars in highly site-specific ornament unearthed from the overlooked margins of Ann Arbor. On the Courtyard pillar\, Karlsrud scales up photographs of objects found in liminal spaces surrounding campus buildings on Green Road\, which the artist has encrusted in road salt. On the entryway pillar\, Clegg zooms in on tiny fragments of found material from UMich’s famous “rock” to celebrate nearly seven decades of student art and activism. Both artists uplift aggregate of local human activity to reveal tiny worlds of found form. \n\nSally Clegg: Sentimentary Rock\nSentimentary Rock is a composition of paint slag collected from the UMich rock monument at the corner of Washtenaw Avenue and Hill Street. This colorful composite material has been accumulating at the base of the iconic limestone boulder since the mid 1950’s\, when students began a tradition of painting it in acts of protest\, creativity\, and ritual\, sometimes multiple times per week. Akin to byproducts of industry such as “Fordite” (collectable chunks of automotive overspray sometimes called ‘Detroit agate’)\, Sentimentary Rock includes thousands of layers\, each dripped from a palimpsestic public proclamation. When processed\, sculpted\, sealed\, assembled\, and macro-photographed\, the result is this enlarged array of tiny gems\, intended to celebrate the indissoluble student voice. \n\nKim Karlsrud: What Amasses\nWhat Amasses is an assemblage of everyday found objects collected within the Miller Creek watershed\, an urbanized drainage system that encompasses much of the city of Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan campus. Selected objects were immersed in a road salt solution\, allowing delicate crystalline formations to emerge. Road salt is a common material input into these hydrological networks during the winter months and exists in multiple states of refinement\, expression\, coherence\, and fragmentation. Each object was then arranged\, photographed\, and enlarged to recontextualize these materials in ways that invite deeper reflections on how infrastructure and human agency blur notions of the natural and the artificial. \nArtist Statements/Bios\n\nSally Clegg \nSally Clegg is an artist and educator from Pelham\, Massachusetts. Her studio practice is rooted in sculpture and expanded printmaking\, stemming from a fascination with human efforts to make meaning from our relationships to objects. Clegg integrates history\, popular culture\, literature and philosophy as material for artmaking\, leveraging personal anecdote and humor to reveal the complexity\, absurdity\, and theoretical richness at play in our connections to things and to ourselves. \n\nClegg holds an MFA in Art from The University of Michigan Stamps School of Art & Design\, and a BA in Art & English from Goucher College. She has exhibited nationally and internationally\, and her work can be found in permanent collections at Yale University\, The New York Public Library\, and elsewhere. Her artwork and writing has appeared in ASAP/Journal\, BOMB Magazine\, Sculpture Magazine\, and Hyperallergic. She is a lecturer in Art & Design at the University of Michigan. Website / Instagram\n\n\nKim Karlsrud \nKim Karlsrud is the co-founder of Commonstudio\, a collaborative creative practice that develops socio-ecological and spatial interventions\, installations\, and initiatives working with and within urban landscapes. Her work explores the space between art and design\, and is grounded in the concept of the “commons\,” that which is shared\, as well as that which is ordinary\, banal\, and commonplace.\n\nKarlsrud completed her undergraduate degree in Product Design from Otis College of Art and Design and an MFA in Art from the University of Michigan. She is currently an Assistant Visiting Professor in the College of Design at the University of Oregon\, teaching across Art and Landscape Architecture departments. She jointly received the 2014-15 Prince Charitable Trust Rome Prize in Landscape Architecture\, was a 2017 resident at the Headlands Center for the Arts\, and is the 2025-26 Fuller Fieldscape Fellow. Website / Instagram
UID:138032-21903380@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/138032
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20250828T001529
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260528T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260528T190000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Fore-Site (Phase 3): The Stamps Gallery Pillar Project
DESCRIPTION:From September 2025 through August 2026\, Stamps Gallery is partnering in a curatorial collaboration with two Ypsilanti-based\, artist-run project spaces led by Stamps alumni: C.Y.N.K. Studios\, directed by Sally Clegg (Lecturer III and Student Exhibition Coordinator\, MFA ’20) and Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20)\; and Sometimes Space\, directed by Nathan Byrne (Lecturer I\, MFA ’21). Each space hosts dozens of artists annually for exhibitions\, performances\, and events\, fostering experimental work and building community. For this project\, Byrne\, Clegg\, and Narula have been commissioned to reimagine the pillars on Division Street that flank the gallery. In response\, they've curated six artists to create new work for the pillars over three cycles:\nPhase 1 (September 12 - December 12) artists: Amelia Burns (Cranbrook MFA '23) and Erin McKenna (MFA '20)Phase 2 (January 12 - April 12) artists: Sally Clegg (MFA '20) and Kim Karlsrud (MFA '20)Phase 3 (May 12 - August 12) artists: Abhishek Narula (MFA '20) and Nathan Byrne (MFA '21)\nPhase 3 \nCurated by Sometimes Space: Abhishek Narula (entry pillar)Curated by CYNK Studios: Nathan Byrne (courtyard pillar)
UID:138033-21881336@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/138033
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260421T085257
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260529T090000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260529T170000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Debbie Thompson Exhibition
DESCRIPTION:Debbie Thompson works predominantly in clay and draws inspiration from the natural world\, which she frequently references in her work. Her interest in ceramics began in high school when she took classes at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills\, Michigan. She later pursued her passion at the University of Michigan School of Art and Design\, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts. She also holds a Master of Arts from Eastern Michigan University and has completed post-graduate studio coursework at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago\, Maryland Institute College of Art\, Rhode Island School of Design\, and Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts.\n\nThompson taught visual art in the Ann Arbor Public Schools for 34 years and has also taught at the University of Michigan School of Education and Washtenaw Community College. She exhibits her work both locally and nationally and was a member of the Clay Gallery. She continues her practice in her home studio and at the Potters Guild in Ann Arbor\, Michigan. She is a member of the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts and the Michigan Ceramic Art Association. Her work is included in the permanent collection of the International Dinnerware Museum.\n\nThompson’s work has been inspired by the natural world since childhood. Although she initially studied biology in college\, she later shifted her focus to visual art. The textures\, colors\, and forms in her pieces are drawn directly from nature.\nSeeds—structures that have enabled plants to move through space and time for over 600 million years—are central to her recent work. They are vital to the continuation of plant life\, and therefore to human survival.\n\nIn this exhibition\, Thompson explores the unseen structures of seeds as revealed through electron microscopy. These images highlight the intricate beauty and ingenuity of nature\, which she interprets through her wall-mounted ceramic sculptures.\n\nAt a time when our planet and its ecosystems face increasing threats\, Thompson’s work serves as a reminder of the importance of preserving the natural world. Recognizing the beauty and significance of these often-unseen forms is a crucial first step toward protecting the life systems on which we all depend.
UID:147884-21902231@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/147884
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:North Campus Research Complex Building 18 - Connection Gallery
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260511T181505
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260529T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260529T190000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Fore-Site (Phase 2): The Stamps Gallery Pillar Project
DESCRIPTION:\n\nFrom September 2025 through November 2026\, Stamps Gallery is partnering in a curatorial collaboration with two Ypsilanti-based\, artist-run project spaces led by Stamps alumni: C.Y.N.K. Studios\, directed by Sally Clegg (Lecturer III and Student Exhibition Coordinator\, MFA ’20) and Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20)\; and Sometimes Space\, directed by Nathan Byrne (Lecturer I\, MFA ’21). Each space hosts dozens of artists annually for exhibitions\, performances\, and events\, fostering experimental work and building community. For this project\, Byrne\, Clegg\, and Narula have been commissioned to reimagine the pillars on Division Street that flank the gallery. In response\, they’ve curated six artists to create new work for the pillars over three cycles:\n\nPhase 1 (September 12 - December 12) artists: Amelia Burns (Cranbrook MFA ’23) and Erin McKenna (MFA ’20)\nPhase 2 (January 12 - August 12) artists: Sally Clegg (MFA ’20) and Kim Karlsrud (MFA ’20)\nPhase 3 (September 12 - November 12) artists: Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20) and Nathan Byrne (MFA ’21)\nPhase 2 Curatorial Statement\n\nCurated by Sometimes Space: Sally Clegg (entry pillar)\nCurated by CYNK Studios: Kim Karlsrud (courtyard pillar)\n\nArtists Sally Clegg and Kim Karlsrud wrap the Division Street pillars in highly site-specific ornament unearthed from the overlooked margins of Ann Arbor. On the Courtyard pillar\, Karlsrud scales up photographs of objects found in liminal spaces surrounding campus buildings on Green Road\, which the artist has encrusted in road salt. On the entryway pillar\, Clegg zooms in on tiny fragments of found material from UMich’s famous “rock” to celebrate nearly seven decades of student art and activism. Both artists uplift aggregate of local human activity to reveal tiny worlds of found form. \n\nSally Clegg: Sentimentary Rock\nSentimentary Rock is a composition of paint slag collected from the UMich rock monument at the corner of Washtenaw Avenue and Hill Street. This colorful composite material has been accumulating at the base of the iconic limestone boulder since the mid 1950’s\, when students began a tradition of painting it in acts of protest\, creativity\, and ritual\, sometimes multiple times per week. Akin to byproducts of industry such as “Fordite” (collectable chunks of automotive overspray sometimes called ‘Detroit agate’)\, Sentimentary Rock includes thousands of layers\, each dripped from a palimpsestic public proclamation. When processed\, sculpted\, sealed\, assembled\, and macro-photographed\, the result is this enlarged array of tiny gems\, intended to celebrate the indissoluble student voice. \n\nKim Karlsrud: What Amasses\nWhat Amasses is an assemblage of everyday found objects collected within the Miller Creek watershed\, an urbanized drainage system that encompasses much of the city of Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan campus. Selected objects were immersed in a road salt solution\, allowing delicate crystalline formations to emerge. Road salt is a common material input into these hydrological networks during the winter months and exists in multiple states of refinement\, expression\, coherence\, and fragmentation. Each object was then arranged\, photographed\, and enlarged to recontextualize these materials in ways that invite deeper reflections on how infrastructure and human agency blur notions of the natural and the artificial. \nArtist Statements/Bios\n\nSally Clegg \nSally Clegg is an artist and educator from Pelham\, Massachusetts. Her studio practice is rooted in sculpture and expanded printmaking\, stemming from a fascination with human efforts to make meaning from our relationships to objects. Clegg integrates history\, popular culture\, literature and philosophy as material for artmaking\, leveraging personal anecdote and humor to reveal the complexity\, absurdity\, and theoretical richness at play in our connections to things and to ourselves. \n\nClegg holds an MFA in Art from The University of Michigan Stamps School of Art & Design\, and a BA in Art & English from Goucher College. She has exhibited nationally and internationally\, and her work can be found in permanent collections at Yale University\, The New York Public Library\, and elsewhere. Her artwork and writing has appeared in ASAP/Journal\, BOMB Magazine\, Sculpture Magazine\, and Hyperallergic. She is a lecturer in Art & Design at the University of Michigan. Website / Instagram\n\n\nKim Karlsrud \nKim Karlsrud is the co-founder of Commonstudio\, a collaborative creative practice that develops socio-ecological and spatial interventions\, installations\, and initiatives working with and within urban landscapes. Her work explores the space between art and design\, and is grounded in the concept of the “commons\,” that which is shared\, as well as that which is ordinary\, banal\, and commonplace.\n\nKarlsrud completed her undergraduate degree in Product Design from Otis College of Art and Design and an MFA in Art from the University of Michigan. She is currently an Assistant Visiting Professor in the College of Design at the University of Oregon\, teaching across Art and Landscape Architecture departments. She jointly received the 2014-15 Prince Charitable Trust Rome Prize in Landscape Architecture\, was a 2017 resident at the Headlands Center for the Arts\, and is the 2025-26 Fuller Fieldscape Fellow. Website / Instagram
UID:138032-21903381@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/138032
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20250828T001529
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260529T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260529T190000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Fore-Site (Phase 3): The Stamps Gallery Pillar Project
DESCRIPTION:From September 2025 through August 2026\, Stamps Gallery is partnering in a curatorial collaboration with two Ypsilanti-based\, artist-run project spaces led by Stamps alumni: C.Y.N.K. Studios\, directed by Sally Clegg (Lecturer III and Student Exhibition Coordinator\, MFA ’20) and Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20)\; and Sometimes Space\, directed by Nathan Byrne (Lecturer I\, MFA ’21). Each space hosts dozens of artists annually for exhibitions\, performances\, and events\, fostering experimental work and building community. For this project\, Byrne\, Clegg\, and Narula have been commissioned to reimagine the pillars on Division Street that flank the gallery. In response\, they've curated six artists to create new work for the pillars over three cycles:\nPhase 1 (September 12 - December 12) artists: Amelia Burns (Cranbrook MFA '23) and Erin McKenna (MFA '20)Phase 2 (January 12 - April 12) artists: Sally Clegg (MFA '20) and Kim Karlsrud (MFA '20)Phase 3 (May 12 - August 12) artists: Abhishek Narula (MFA '20) and Nathan Byrne (MFA '21)\nPhase 3 \nCurated by Sometimes Space: Abhishek Narula (entry pillar)Curated by CYNK Studios: Nathan Byrne (courtyard pillar)
UID:138033-21881337@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/138033
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260528T143201
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260529T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260529T180000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:You Next
DESCRIPTION:The University of Michigan Duderstadt Center Gallery presents “You Next”\, a duo exhibition by Thede Ambrose and Kate Donoghue\, curated by Nathan Byrne.\n\nOpening: Friday\, May 29th 6-9pm\nClosing: Sunday\, June 28th 2-5pm\n\nArtifacts\, Illusion\, and the Speculative mediate the exchange between Thede Ambrose and Kate Donoghue’s practices.\n\nReferencing both personal and found documentary and advertisement imagery\, Donoghue investigates the vacuous and hauntingly banal underbelly of commercial aspirations\, constructing paintings that collapse expectations of consumerism into innate and corrupted desires.\n\nAmbrose navigates mediated violence\, spirituality\, and the abject\, manifesting in perverse articulations of belief and reality. Imagistic sculpture and installation are generated through an expansive material interest\, and an extensive archive of found imagery.\n\n“You Next” presents the collisions of these practices. Cautionary tales\, dreams\, and fantasies of objectification come to a head in this collaboration between the two artists.\n\nGallery Hours: Tuesday - Friday\, Noon-6pm and Sunday Noon-6 pm
UID:148455-21904297@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/148455
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Duderstadt Center - Gallery 1019
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260512T100436
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260530T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260530T120000
SUMMARY:Performance:Dancing with the Dragon | Dragon Dance Performance at the Peony Garden
DESCRIPTION:In Chinese tradition\, dragons are bearers of auspicious wishes\, and peonies\, \"king of flowers\,\" symbolize prosperity and honor. Watch a bedazzling spectacle as the new U-M dragon winds its way down garden pathways filled with blossoming peonies--a welcomed event to usher in good fortune and summertime cheer. \n\n*Rain date is May 31\, 11:00 AM*\n\n*Accommodation: If there is anything we can do to make this event accessible to you\, please contact us at cstep@umich.edu. Please be aware that advance notice is necessary as some accommodations may require more time for the university to arrange.*
UID:147965-21902633@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/147965
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Nichols Arboretum - Peony Garden
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260511T181505
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260530T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260530T190000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Fore-Site (Phase 2): The Stamps Gallery Pillar Project
DESCRIPTION:\n\nFrom September 2025 through November 2026\, Stamps Gallery is partnering in a curatorial collaboration with two Ypsilanti-based\, artist-run project spaces led by Stamps alumni: C.Y.N.K. Studios\, directed by Sally Clegg (Lecturer III and Student Exhibition Coordinator\, MFA ’20) and Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20)\; and Sometimes Space\, directed by Nathan Byrne (Lecturer I\, MFA ’21). Each space hosts dozens of artists annually for exhibitions\, performances\, and events\, fostering experimental work and building community. For this project\, Byrne\, Clegg\, and Narula have been commissioned to reimagine the pillars on Division Street that flank the gallery. In response\, they’ve curated six artists to create new work for the pillars over three cycles:\n\nPhase 1 (September 12 - December 12) artists: Amelia Burns (Cranbrook MFA ’23) and Erin McKenna (MFA ’20)\nPhase 2 (January 12 - August 12) artists: Sally Clegg (MFA ’20) and Kim Karlsrud (MFA ’20)\nPhase 3 (September 12 - November 12) artists: Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20) and Nathan Byrne (MFA ’21)\nPhase 2 Curatorial Statement\n\nCurated by Sometimes Space: Sally Clegg (entry pillar)\nCurated by CYNK Studios: Kim Karlsrud (courtyard pillar)\n\nArtists Sally Clegg and Kim Karlsrud wrap the Division Street pillars in highly site-specific ornament unearthed from the overlooked margins of Ann Arbor. On the Courtyard pillar\, Karlsrud scales up photographs of objects found in liminal spaces surrounding campus buildings on Green Road\, which the artist has encrusted in road salt. On the entryway pillar\, Clegg zooms in on tiny fragments of found material from UMich’s famous “rock” to celebrate nearly seven decades of student art and activism. Both artists uplift aggregate of local human activity to reveal tiny worlds of found form. \n\nSally Clegg: Sentimentary Rock\nSentimentary Rock is a composition of paint slag collected from the UMich rock monument at the corner of Washtenaw Avenue and Hill Street. This colorful composite material has been accumulating at the base of the iconic limestone boulder since the mid 1950’s\, when students began a tradition of painting it in acts of protest\, creativity\, and ritual\, sometimes multiple times per week. Akin to byproducts of industry such as “Fordite” (collectable chunks of automotive overspray sometimes called ‘Detroit agate’)\, Sentimentary Rock includes thousands of layers\, each dripped from a palimpsestic public proclamation. When processed\, sculpted\, sealed\, assembled\, and macro-photographed\, the result is this enlarged array of tiny gems\, intended to celebrate the indissoluble student voice. \n\nKim Karlsrud: What Amasses\nWhat Amasses is an assemblage of everyday found objects collected within the Miller Creek watershed\, an urbanized drainage system that encompasses much of the city of Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan campus. Selected objects were immersed in a road salt solution\, allowing delicate crystalline formations to emerge. Road salt is a common material input into these hydrological networks during the winter months and exists in multiple states of refinement\, expression\, coherence\, and fragmentation. Each object was then arranged\, photographed\, and enlarged to recontextualize these materials in ways that invite deeper reflections on how infrastructure and human agency blur notions of the natural and the artificial. \nArtist Statements/Bios\n\nSally Clegg \nSally Clegg is an artist and educator from Pelham\, Massachusetts. Her studio practice is rooted in sculpture and expanded printmaking\, stemming from a fascination with human efforts to make meaning from our relationships to objects. Clegg integrates history\, popular culture\, literature and philosophy as material for artmaking\, leveraging personal anecdote and humor to reveal the complexity\, absurdity\, and theoretical richness at play in our connections to things and to ourselves. \n\nClegg holds an MFA in Art from The University of Michigan Stamps School of Art & Design\, and a BA in Art & English from Goucher College. She has exhibited nationally and internationally\, and her work can be found in permanent collections at Yale University\, The New York Public Library\, and elsewhere. Her artwork and writing has appeared in ASAP/Journal\, BOMB Magazine\, Sculpture Magazine\, and Hyperallergic. She is a lecturer in Art & Design at the University of Michigan. Website / Instagram\n\n\nKim Karlsrud \nKim Karlsrud is the co-founder of Commonstudio\, a collaborative creative practice that develops socio-ecological and spatial interventions\, installations\, and initiatives working with and within urban landscapes. Her work explores the space between art and design\, and is grounded in the concept of the “commons\,” that which is shared\, as well as that which is ordinary\, banal\, and commonplace.\n\nKarlsrud completed her undergraduate degree in Product Design from Otis College of Art and Design and an MFA in Art from the University of Michigan. She is currently an Assistant Visiting Professor in the College of Design at the University of Oregon\, teaching across Art and Landscape Architecture departments. She jointly received the 2014-15 Prince Charitable Trust Rome Prize in Landscape Architecture\, was a 2017 resident at the Headlands Center for the Arts\, and is the 2025-26 Fuller Fieldscape Fellow. Website / Instagram
UID:138032-21903382@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/138032
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20250828T001529
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260530T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260530T190000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Fore-Site (Phase 3): The Stamps Gallery Pillar Project
DESCRIPTION:From September 2025 through August 2026\, Stamps Gallery is partnering in a curatorial collaboration with two Ypsilanti-based\, artist-run project spaces led by Stamps alumni: C.Y.N.K. Studios\, directed by Sally Clegg (Lecturer III and Student Exhibition Coordinator\, MFA ’20) and Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20)\; and Sometimes Space\, directed by Nathan Byrne (Lecturer I\, MFA ’21). Each space hosts dozens of artists annually for exhibitions\, performances\, and events\, fostering experimental work and building community. For this project\, Byrne\, Clegg\, and Narula have been commissioned to reimagine the pillars on Division Street that flank the gallery. In response\, they've curated six artists to create new work for the pillars over three cycles:\nPhase 1 (September 12 - December 12) artists: Amelia Burns (Cranbrook MFA '23) and Erin McKenna (MFA '20)Phase 2 (January 12 - April 12) artists: Sally Clegg (MFA '20) and Kim Karlsrud (MFA '20)Phase 3 (May 12 - August 12) artists: Abhishek Narula (MFA '20) and Nathan Byrne (MFA '21)\nPhase 3 \nCurated by Sometimes Space: Abhishek Narula (entry pillar)Curated by CYNK Studios: Nathan Byrne (courtyard pillar)
UID:138033-21881338@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/138033
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260518T110610
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260530T130000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260530T150000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:No Strings art exhibit reception
DESCRIPTION:No Strings is an art exhibit that illustrates quotes from guaranteed income recipients about what an extra $528 per month in no-strings-attached cash meant to them\, as part of the Guaranteed Income to Grow Ann Arbor (GIG A2) pilot program. The art was created by U-M students under the guidance of artist Katie Hammond. The exhibit was curated by Poverty Solutions at U-M\, which designed the pilot and is evaluating the impact of GIG A2. \n\nAt the reception\, you can view and respond to the art as well as hear more about how the project came together.
UID:148319-21903920@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/148319
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260528T143201
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260531T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260531T180000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:You Next
DESCRIPTION:The University of Michigan Duderstadt Center Gallery presents “You Next”\, a duo exhibition by Thede Ambrose and Kate Donoghue\, curated by Nathan Byrne.\n\nOpening: Friday\, May 29th 6-9pm\nClosing: Sunday\, June 28th 2-5pm\n\nArtifacts\, Illusion\, and the Speculative mediate the exchange between Thede Ambrose and Kate Donoghue’s practices.\n\nReferencing both personal and found documentary and advertisement imagery\, Donoghue investigates the vacuous and hauntingly banal underbelly of commercial aspirations\, constructing paintings that collapse expectations of consumerism into innate and corrupted desires.\n\nAmbrose navigates mediated violence\, spirituality\, and the abject\, manifesting in perverse articulations of belief and reality. Imagistic sculpture and installation are generated through an expansive material interest\, and an extensive archive of found imagery.\n\n“You Next” presents the collisions of these practices. Cautionary tales\, dreams\, and fantasies of objectification come to a head in this collaboration between the two artists.\n\nGallery Hours: Tuesday - Friday\, Noon-6pm and Sunday Noon-6 pm
UID:148455-21904300@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/148455
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Duderstadt Center - Gallery 1019
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260421T085257
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260601T090000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260601T170000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Debbie Thompson Exhibition
DESCRIPTION:Debbie Thompson works predominantly in clay and draws inspiration from the natural world\, which she frequently references in her work. Her interest in ceramics began in high school when she took classes at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills\, Michigan. She later pursued her passion at the University of Michigan School of Art and Design\, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts. She also holds a Master of Arts from Eastern Michigan University and has completed post-graduate studio coursework at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago\, Maryland Institute College of Art\, Rhode Island School of Design\, and Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts.\n\nThompson taught visual art in the Ann Arbor Public Schools for 34 years and has also taught at the University of Michigan School of Education and Washtenaw Community College. She exhibits her work both locally and nationally and was a member of the Clay Gallery. She continues her practice in her home studio and at the Potters Guild in Ann Arbor\, Michigan. She is a member of the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts and the Michigan Ceramic Art Association. Her work is included in the permanent collection of the International Dinnerware Museum.\n\nThompson’s work has been inspired by the natural world since childhood. Although she initially studied biology in college\, she later shifted her focus to visual art. The textures\, colors\, and forms in her pieces are drawn directly from nature.\nSeeds—structures that have enabled plants to move through space and time for over 600 million years—are central to her recent work. They are vital to the continuation of plant life\, and therefore to human survival.\n\nIn this exhibition\, Thompson explores the unseen structures of seeds as revealed through electron microscopy. These images highlight the intricate beauty and ingenuity of nature\, which she interprets through her wall-mounted ceramic sculptures.\n\nAt a time when our planet and its ecosystems face increasing threats\, Thompson’s work serves as a reminder of the importance of preserving the natural world. Recognizing the beauty and significance of these often-unseen forms is a crucial first step toward protecting the life systems on which we all depend.
UID:147884-21902234@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/147884
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:North Campus Research Complex Building 18 - Connection Gallery
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260421T085257
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260602T090000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260602T170000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Debbie Thompson Exhibition
DESCRIPTION:Debbie Thompson works predominantly in clay and draws inspiration from the natural world\, which she frequently references in her work. Her interest in ceramics began in high school when she took classes at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills\, Michigan. She later pursued her passion at the University of Michigan School of Art and Design\, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts. She also holds a Master of Arts from Eastern Michigan University and has completed post-graduate studio coursework at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago\, Maryland Institute College of Art\, Rhode Island School of Design\, and Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts.\n\nThompson taught visual art in the Ann Arbor Public Schools for 34 years and has also taught at the University of Michigan School of Education and Washtenaw Community College. She exhibits her work both locally and nationally and was a member of the Clay Gallery. She continues her practice in her home studio and at the Potters Guild in Ann Arbor\, Michigan. She is a member of the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts and the Michigan Ceramic Art Association. Her work is included in the permanent collection of the International Dinnerware Museum.\n\nThompson’s work has been inspired by the natural world since childhood. Although she initially studied biology in college\, she later shifted her focus to visual art. The textures\, colors\, and forms in her pieces are drawn directly from nature.\nSeeds—structures that have enabled plants to move through space and time for over 600 million years—are central to her recent work. They are vital to the continuation of plant life\, and therefore to human survival.\n\nIn this exhibition\, Thompson explores the unseen structures of seeds as revealed through electron microscopy. These images highlight the intricate beauty and ingenuity of nature\, which she interprets through her wall-mounted ceramic sculptures.\n\nAt a time when our planet and its ecosystems face increasing threats\, Thompson’s work serves as a reminder of the importance of preserving the natural world. Recognizing the beauty and significance of these often-unseen forms is a crucial first step toward protecting the life systems on which we all depend.
UID:147884-21902235@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/147884
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:North Campus Research Complex Building 18 - Connection Gallery
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260528T143201
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260602T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260602T180000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:You Next
DESCRIPTION:The University of Michigan Duderstadt Center Gallery presents “You Next”\, a duo exhibition by Thede Ambrose and Kate Donoghue\, curated by Nathan Byrne.\n\nOpening: Friday\, May 29th 6-9pm\nClosing: Sunday\, June 28th 2-5pm\n\nArtifacts\, Illusion\, and the Speculative mediate the exchange between Thede Ambrose and Kate Donoghue’s practices.\n\nReferencing both personal and found documentary and advertisement imagery\, Donoghue investigates the vacuous and hauntingly banal underbelly of commercial aspirations\, constructing paintings that collapse expectations of consumerism into innate and corrupted desires.\n\nAmbrose navigates mediated violence\, spirituality\, and the abject\, manifesting in perverse articulations of belief and reality. Imagistic sculpture and installation are generated through an expansive material interest\, and an extensive archive of found imagery.\n\n“You Next” presents the collisions of these practices. Cautionary tales\, dreams\, and fantasies of objectification come to a head in this collaboration between the two artists.\n\nGallery Hours: Tuesday - Friday\, Noon-6pm and Sunday Noon-6 pm
UID:148455-21904302@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/148455
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Duderstadt Center - Gallery 1019
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260430T150900
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260602T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260602T193000
SUMMARY:Performance:Sekhmet Unraveled
DESCRIPTION:Poetry\, movement\, and theater merge contemporary realities with ancestral memories to re-author the histories of Egyptology and examine what it means to be Egyptian\, Nubian\, and American. *Sekhmet Unraveled* invites audiences to celebrate contemporary and ancient cultures in a museum space and rethink how they engage with history\, art\, and heritage within and beyond the museum.\n\nThis event is free and open to the public and is appropriate for all ages\; please enter through the Kelsey Museum’s Maynard Street entrance. The performance will take place from 6:00 to 7:00 PM\, with a talkback session and refreshments to follow.\n\nRSVP required—sign up here to reserve your spot: https://myumi.ch/P3yjQ. \n\nTo learn more about this performance\, visit the HERitage emBODYment website: https://heritageembodyment.square.site/upcoming.
UID:148026-21902857@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/148026
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Kelsey Museum of Archaeology
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260421T085257
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260603T090000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260603T170000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Debbie Thompson Exhibition
DESCRIPTION:Debbie Thompson works predominantly in clay and draws inspiration from the natural world\, which she frequently references in her work. Her interest in ceramics began in high school when she took classes at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills\, Michigan. She later pursued her passion at the University of Michigan School of Art and Design\, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts. She also holds a Master of Arts from Eastern Michigan University and has completed post-graduate studio coursework at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago\, Maryland Institute College of Art\, Rhode Island School of Design\, and Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts.\n\nThompson taught visual art in the Ann Arbor Public Schools for 34 years and has also taught at the University of Michigan School of Education and Washtenaw Community College. She exhibits her work both locally and nationally and was a member of the Clay Gallery. She continues her practice in her home studio and at the Potters Guild in Ann Arbor\, Michigan. She is a member of the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts and the Michigan Ceramic Art Association. Her work is included in the permanent collection of the International Dinnerware Museum.\n\nThompson’s work has been inspired by the natural world since childhood. Although she initially studied biology in college\, she later shifted her focus to visual art. The textures\, colors\, and forms in her pieces are drawn directly from nature.\nSeeds—structures that have enabled plants to move through space and time for over 600 million years—are central to her recent work. They are vital to the continuation of plant life\, and therefore to human survival.\n\nIn this exhibition\, Thompson explores the unseen structures of seeds as revealed through electron microscopy. These images highlight the intricate beauty and ingenuity of nature\, which she interprets through her wall-mounted ceramic sculptures.\n\nAt a time when our planet and its ecosystems face increasing threats\, Thompson’s work serves as a reminder of the importance of preserving the natural world. Recognizing the beauty and significance of these often-unseen forms is a crucial first step toward protecting the life systems on which we all depend.
UID:147884-21902236@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/147884
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:North Campus Research Complex Building 18 - Connection Gallery
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260511T181505
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260603T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260603T190000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Fore-Site (Phase 2): The Stamps Gallery Pillar Project
DESCRIPTION:\n\nFrom September 2025 through November 2026\, Stamps Gallery is partnering in a curatorial collaboration with two Ypsilanti-based\, artist-run project spaces led by Stamps alumni: C.Y.N.K. Studios\, directed by Sally Clegg (Lecturer III and Student Exhibition Coordinator\, MFA ’20) and Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20)\; and Sometimes Space\, directed by Nathan Byrne (Lecturer I\, MFA ’21). Each space hosts dozens of artists annually for exhibitions\, performances\, and events\, fostering experimental work and building community. For this project\, Byrne\, Clegg\, and Narula have been commissioned to reimagine the pillars on Division Street that flank the gallery. In response\, they’ve curated six artists to create new work for the pillars over three cycles:\n\nPhase 1 (September 12 - December 12) artists: Amelia Burns (Cranbrook MFA ’23) and Erin McKenna (MFA ’20)\nPhase 2 (January 12 - August 12) artists: Sally Clegg (MFA ’20) and Kim Karlsrud (MFA ’20)\nPhase 3 (September 12 - November 12) artists: Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20) and Nathan Byrne (MFA ’21)\nPhase 2 Curatorial Statement\n\nCurated by Sometimes Space: Sally Clegg (entry pillar)\nCurated by CYNK Studios: Kim Karlsrud (courtyard pillar)\n\nArtists Sally Clegg and Kim Karlsrud wrap the Division Street pillars in highly site-specific ornament unearthed from the overlooked margins of Ann Arbor. On the Courtyard pillar\, Karlsrud scales up photographs of objects found in liminal spaces surrounding campus buildings on Green Road\, which the artist has encrusted in road salt. On the entryway pillar\, Clegg zooms in on tiny fragments of found material from UMich’s famous “rock” to celebrate nearly seven decades of student art and activism. Both artists uplift aggregate of local human activity to reveal tiny worlds of found form. \n\nSally Clegg: Sentimentary Rock\nSentimentary Rock is a composition of paint slag collected from the UMich rock monument at the corner of Washtenaw Avenue and Hill Street. This colorful composite material has been accumulating at the base of the iconic limestone boulder since the mid 1950’s\, when students began a tradition of painting it in acts of protest\, creativity\, and ritual\, sometimes multiple times per week. Akin to byproducts of industry such as “Fordite” (collectable chunks of automotive overspray sometimes called ‘Detroit agate’)\, Sentimentary Rock includes thousands of layers\, each dripped from a palimpsestic public proclamation. When processed\, sculpted\, sealed\, assembled\, and macro-photographed\, the result is this enlarged array of tiny gems\, intended to celebrate the indissoluble student voice. \n\nKim Karlsrud: What Amasses\nWhat Amasses is an assemblage of everyday found objects collected within the Miller Creek watershed\, an urbanized drainage system that encompasses much of the city of Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan campus. Selected objects were immersed in a road salt solution\, allowing delicate crystalline formations to emerge. Road salt is a common material input into these hydrological networks during the winter months and exists in multiple states of refinement\, expression\, coherence\, and fragmentation. Each object was then arranged\, photographed\, and enlarged to recontextualize these materials in ways that invite deeper reflections on how infrastructure and human agency blur notions of the natural and the artificial. \nArtist Statements/Bios\n\nSally Clegg \nSally Clegg is an artist and educator from Pelham\, Massachusetts. Her studio practice is rooted in sculpture and expanded printmaking\, stemming from a fascination with human efforts to make meaning from our relationships to objects. Clegg integrates history\, popular culture\, literature and philosophy as material for artmaking\, leveraging personal anecdote and humor to reveal the complexity\, absurdity\, and theoretical richness at play in our connections to things and to ourselves. \n\nClegg holds an MFA in Art from The University of Michigan Stamps School of Art & Design\, and a BA in Art & English from Goucher College. She has exhibited nationally and internationally\, and her work can be found in permanent collections at Yale University\, The New York Public Library\, and elsewhere. Her artwork and writing has appeared in ASAP/Journal\, BOMB Magazine\, Sculpture Magazine\, and Hyperallergic. She is a lecturer in Art & Design at the University of Michigan. Website / Instagram\n\n\nKim Karlsrud \nKim Karlsrud is the co-founder of Commonstudio\, a collaborative creative practice that develops socio-ecological and spatial interventions\, installations\, and initiatives working with and within urban landscapes. Her work explores the space between art and design\, and is grounded in the concept of the “commons\,” that which is shared\, as well as that which is ordinary\, banal\, and commonplace.\n\nKarlsrud completed her undergraduate degree in Product Design from Otis College of Art and Design and an MFA in Art from the University of Michigan. She is currently an Assistant Visiting Professor in the College of Design at the University of Oregon\, teaching across Art and Landscape Architecture departments. She jointly received the 2014-15 Prince Charitable Trust Rome Prize in Landscape Architecture\, was a 2017 resident at the Headlands Center for the Arts\, and is the 2025-26 Fuller Fieldscape Fellow. Website / Instagram
UID:138032-21903383@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/138032
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20250828T001529
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260603T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260603T190000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Fore-Site (Phase 3): The Stamps Gallery Pillar Project
DESCRIPTION:From September 2025 through August 2026\, Stamps Gallery is partnering in a curatorial collaboration with two Ypsilanti-based\, artist-run project spaces led by Stamps alumni: C.Y.N.K. Studios\, directed by Sally Clegg (Lecturer III and Student Exhibition Coordinator\, MFA ’20) and Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20)\; and Sometimes Space\, directed by Nathan Byrne (Lecturer I\, MFA ’21). Each space hosts dozens of artists annually for exhibitions\, performances\, and events\, fostering experimental work and building community. For this project\, Byrne\, Clegg\, and Narula have been commissioned to reimagine the pillars on Division Street that flank the gallery. In response\, they've curated six artists to create new work for the pillars over three cycles:\nPhase 1 (September 12 - December 12) artists: Amelia Burns (Cranbrook MFA '23) and Erin McKenna (MFA '20)Phase 2 (January 12 - April 12) artists: Sally Clegg (MFA '20) and Kim Karlsrud (MFA '20)Phase 3 (May 12 - August 12) artists: Abhishek Narula (MFA '20) and Nathan Byrne (MFA '21)\nPhase 3 \nCurated by Sometimes Space: Abhishek Narula (entry pillar)Curated by CYNK Studios: Nathan Byrne (courtyard pillar)
UID:138033-21881339@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/138033
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260528T143201
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260603T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260603T180000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:You Next
DESCRIPTION:The University of Michigan Duderstadt Center Gallery presents “You Next”\, a duo exhibition by Thede Ambrose and Kate Donoghue\, curated by Nathan Byrne.\n\nOpening: Friday\, May 29th 6-9pm\nClosing: Sunday\, June 28th 2-5pm\n\nArtifacts\, Illusion\, and the Speculative mediate the exchange between Thede Ambrose and Kate Donoghue’s practices.\n\nReferencing both personal and found documentary and advertisement imagery\, Donoghue investigates the vacuous and hauntingly banal underbelly of commercial aspirations\, constructing paintings that collapse expectations of consumerism into innate and corrupted desires.\n\nAmbrose navigates mediated violence\, spirituality\, and the abject\, manifesting in perverse articulations of belief and reality. Imagistic sculpture and installation are generated through an expansive material interest\, and an extensive archive of found imagery.\n\n“You Next” presents the collisions of these practices. Cautionary tales\, dreams\, and fantasies of objectification come to a head in this collaboration between the two artists.\n\nGallery Hours: Tuesday - Friday\, Noon-6pm and Sunday Noon-6 pm
UID:148455-21904303@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/148455
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Duderstadt Center - Gallery 1019
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260421T085257
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260604T090000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260604T170000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Debbie Thompson Exhibition
DESCRIPTION:Debbie Thompson works predominantly in clay and draws inspiration from the natural world\, which she frequently references in her work. Her interest in ceramics began in high school when she took classes at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills\, Michigan. She later pursued her passion at the University of Michigan School of Art and Design\, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts. She also holds a Master of Arts from Eastern Michigan University and has completed post-graduate studio coursework at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago\, Maryland Institute College of Art\, Rhode Island School of Design\, and Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts.\n\nThompson taught visual art in the Ann Arbor Public Schools for 34 years and has also taught at the University of Michigan School of Education and Washtenaw Community College. She exhibits her work both locally and nationally and was a member of the Clay Gallery. She continues her practice in her home studio and at the Potters Guild in Ann Arbor\, Michigan. She is a member of the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts and the Michigan Ceramic Art Association. Her work is included in the permanent collection of the International Dinnerware Museum.\n\nThompson’s work has been inspired by the natural world since childhood. Although she initially studied biology in college\, she later shifted her focus to visual art. The textures\, colors\, and forms in her pieces are drawn directly from nature.\nSeeds—structures that have enabled plants to move through space and time for over 600 million years—are central to her recent work. They are vital to the continuation of plant life\, and therefore to human survival.\n\nIn this exhibition\, Thompson explores the unseen structures of seeds as revealed through electron microscopy. These images highlight the intricate beauty and ingenuity of nature\, which she interprets through her wall-mounted ceramic sculptures.\n\nAt a time when our planet and its ecosystems face increasing threats\, Thompson’s work serves as a reminder of the importance of preserving the natural world. Recognizing the beauty and significance of these often-unseen forms is a crucial first step toward protecting the life systems on which we all depend.
UID:147884-21902237@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/147884
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:North Campus Research Complex Building 18 - Connection Gallery
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260511T181505
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260604T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260604T190000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Fore-Site (Phase 2): The Stamps Gallery Pillar Project
DESCRIPTION:\n\nFrom September 2025 through November 2026\, Stamps Gallery is partnering in a curatorial collaboration with two Ypsilanti-based\, artist-run project spaces led by Stamps alumni: C.Y.N.K. Studios\, directed by Sally Clegg (Lecturer III and Student Exhibition Coordinator\, MFA ’20) and Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20)\; and Sometimes Space\, directed by Nathan Byrne (Lecturer I\, MFA ’21). Each space hosts dozens of artists annually for exhibitions\, performances\, and events\, fostering experimental work and building community. For this project\, Byrne\, Clegg\, and Narula have been commissioned to reimagine the pillars on Division Street that flank the gallery. In response\, they’ve curated six artists to create new work for the pillars over three cycles:\n\nPhase 1 (September 12 - December 12) artists: Amelia Burns (Cranbrook MFA ’23) and Erin McKenna (MFA ’20)\nPhase 2 (January 12 - August 12) artists: Sally Clegg (MFA ’20) and Kim Karlsrud (MFA ’20)\nPhase 3 (September 12 - November 12) artists: Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20) and Nathan Byrne (MFA ’21)\nPhase 2 Curatorial Statement\n\nCurated by Sometimes Space: Sally Clegg (entry pillar)\nCurated by CYNK Studios: Kim Karlsrud (courtyard pillar)\n\nArtists Sally Clegg and Kim Karlsrud wrap the Division Street pillars in highly site-specific ornament unearthed from the overlooked margins of Ann Arbor. On the Courtyard pillar\, Karlsrud scales up photographs of objects found in liminal spaces surrounding campus buildings on Green Road\, which the artist has encrusted in road salt. On the entryway pillar\, Clegg zooms in on tiny fragments of found material from UMich’s famous “rock” to celebrate nearly seven decades of student art and activism. Both artists uplift aggregate of local human activity to reveal tiny worlds of found form. \n\nSally Clegg: Sentimentary Rock\nSentimentary Rock is a composition of paint slag collected from the UMich rock monument at the corner of Washtenaw Avenue and Hill Street. This colorful composite material has been accumulating at the base of the iconic limestone boulder since the mid 1950’s\, when students began a tradition of painting it in acts of protest\, creativity\, and ritual\, sometimes multiple times per week. Akin to byproducts of industry such as “Fordite” (collectable chunks of automotive overspray sometimes called ‘Detroit agate’)\, Sentimentary Rock includes thousands of layers\, each dripped from a palimpsestic public proclamation. When processed\, sculpted\, sealed\, assembled\, and macro-photographed\, the result is this enlarged array of tiny gems\, intended to celebrate the indissoluble student voice. \n\nKim Karlsrud: What Amasses\nWhat Amasses is an assemblage of everyday found objects collected within the Miller Creek watershed\, an urbanized drainage system that encompasses much of the city of Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan campus. Selected objects were immersed in a road salt solution\, allowing delicate crystalline formations to emerge. Road salt is a common material input into these hydrological networks during the winter months and exists in multiple states of refinement\, expression\, coherence\, and fragmentation. Each object was then arranged\, photographed\, and enlarged to recontextualize these materials in ways that invite deeper reflections on how infrastructure and human agency blur notions of the natural and the artificial. \nArtist Statements/Bios\n\nSally Clegg \nSally Clegg is an artist and educator from Pelham\, Massachusetts. Her studio practice is rooted in sculpture and expanded printmaking\, stemming from a fascination with human efforts to make meaning from our relationships to objects. Clegg integrates history\, popular culture\, literature and philosophy as material for artmaking\, leveraging personal anecdote and humor to reveal the complexity\, absurdity\, and theoretical richness at play in our connections to things and to ourselves. \n\nClegg holds an MFA in Art from The University of Michigan Stamps School of Art & Design\, and a BA in Art & English from Goucher College. She has exhibited nationally and internationally\, and her work can be found in permanent collections at Yale University\, The New York Public Library\, and elsewhere. Her artwork and writing has appeared in ASAP/Journal\, BOMB Magazine\, Sculpture Magazine\, and Hyperallergic. She is a lecturer in Art & Design at the University of Michigan. Website / Instagram\n\n\nKim Karlsrud \nKim Karlsrud is the co-founder of Commonstudio\, a collaborative creative practice that develops socio-ecological and spatial interventions\, installations\, and initiatives working with and within urban landscapes. Her work explores the space between art and design\, and is grounded in the concept of the “commons\,” that which is shared\, as well as that which is ordinary\, banal\, and commonplace.\n\nKarlsrud completed her undergraduate degree in Product Design from Otis College of Art and Design and an MFA in Art from the University of Michigan. She is currently an Assistant Visiting Professor in the College of Design at the University of Oregon\, teaching across Art and Landscape Architecture departments. She jointly received the 2014-15 Prince Charitable Trust Rome Prize in Landscape Architecture\, was a 2017 resident at the Headlands Center for the Arts\, and is the 2025-26 Fuller Fieldscape Fellow. Website / Instagram
UID:138032-21903384@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/138032
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20250828T001529
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260604T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260604T190000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Fore-Site (Phase 3): The Stamps Gallery Pillar Project
DESCRIPTION:From September 2025 through August 2026\, Stamps Gallery is partnering in a curatorial collaboration with two Ypsilanti-based\, artist-run project spaces led by Stamps alumni: C.Y.N.K. Studios\, directed by Sally Clegg (Lecturer III and Student Exhibition Coordinator\, MFA ’20) and Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20)\; and Sometimes Space\, directed by Nathan Byrne (Lecturer I\, MFA ’21). Each space hosts dozens of artists annually for exhibitions\, performances\, and events\, fostering experimental work and building community. For this project\, Byrne\, Clegg\, and Narula have been commissioned to reimagine the pillars on Division Street that flank the gallery. In response\, they've curated six artists to create new work for the pillars over three cycles:\nPhase 1 (September 12 - December 12) artists: Amelia Burns (Cranbrook MFA '23) and Erin McKenna (MFA '20)Phase 2 (January 12 - April 12) artists: Sally Clegg (MFA '20) and Kim Karlsrud (MFA '20)Phase 3 (May 12 - August 12) artists: Abhishek Narula (MFA '20) and Nathan Byrne (MFA '21)\nPhase 3 \nCurated by Sometimes Space: Abhishek Narula (entry pillar)Curated by CYNK Studios: Nathan Byrne (courtyard pillar)
UID:138033-21881340@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/138033
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260528T143201
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260604T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260604T180000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:You Next
DESCRIPTION:The University of Michigan Duderstadt Center Gallery presents “You Next”\, a duo exhibition by Thede Ambrose and Kate Donoghue\, curated by Nathan Byrne.\n\nOpening: Friday\, May 29th 6-9pm\nClosing: Sunday\, June 28th 2-5pm\n\nArtifacts\, Illusion\, and the Speculative mediate the exchange between Thede Ambrose and Kate Donoghue’s practices.\n\nReferencing both personal and found documentary and advertisement imagery\, Donoghue investigates the vacuous and hauntingly banal underbelly of commercial aspirations\, constructing paintings that collapse expectations of consumerism into innate and corrupted desires.\n\nAmbrose navigates mediated violence\, spirituality\, and the abject\, manifesting in perverse articulations of belief and reality. Imagistic sculpture and installation are generated through an expansive material interest\, and an extensive archive of found imagery.\n\n“You Next” presents the collisions of these practices. Cautionary tales\, dreams\, and fantasies of objectification come to a head in this collaboration between the two artists.\n\nGallery Hours: Tuesday - Friday\, Noon-6pm and Sunday Noon-6 pm
UID:148455-21904304@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/148455
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Duderstadt Center - Gallery 1019
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260608T121512
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260604T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260604T230000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Marianetta Porter: Breath\, Fragment\, Return
DESCRIPTION:\n\nCurated by Juana Williams\, this exhibition examines how Marianetta Porter uses everyday objects\, fragments\, and embodied memory to make absence an active\, living presence while challenging linear histories. Rooted in African American experience\, her practice treats what is discarded\, overlooked\, or missing not as loss\, but as a source of meaning that continues to act on the present. Through her process and materials\, Porter reveals how memory is carried in the body and embedded in ordinary things. Her work also resists forward-moving notions of time\, instead presenting a diasporic temporality in which past\, present\, and lived experience circulate together through repetition\, touch\, and recall. In doing so\, Porter proposes a vision of history as unfinished\, memory as active\, and absence as a force that sustains connection and shapes the present. \n\nMarianetta Porter is a visual artist and product designer whose research and creative practice are grounded in the study of African American history\, culture\, and representation. Through the language of visual art\, she draws connections between historic memory and contemporary African American life\, giving voice to the history of the African diaspora while acknowledging its central influence on the birth and flourishing of American culture.\n\nHer work has been exhibited nationally at institutions such as the Indianapolis Museum of Art\, the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry\, the Spoleto Festival\, the Harriet Tubman Museum\, and the Hampton University Museum of Art.\n\nShe earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts from Hampton University and her Master of Fine Arts from the University of Michigan. The recipient of numerous awards\, Porter is Professor Emeritus at the University of Michigan’s Stamps School of Art and Design.\n\nJuana Williams is a curator and writer whose work explores the intersections of cross-border intellectual history\, cultural memory\, and identity formation as expressed through modern and contemporary art from Africa and its diasporas.\n\nWilliams has held curatorial and academic appointments at organizations including the Detroit Institute of Arts\, Library Street Collective\, Wayne State University\, and the Urban Institute for Contemporary Art. Her curatorial projects have been presented at institutions across the United States and France\, including the Grand Rapids Art Museum\, the Muskegon Museum of Art\, Palais de Tokyo (Paris)\, and the Westmoreland Museum of American Art. In addition\, she has presented lectures at various museums and universities and contributed to numerous exhibition catalogs. Her work has been written about in publications such as Artsy\, Beaux Arts Magazine\, Condé Nast Traveller\, Michigan Chronicle\, and Observer. Williams holds a BA in Fine Art and an MA in Art History from Wayne State University.
UID:147625-21901371@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/147625
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260416T121510
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260604T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260604T200000
SUMMARY:Reception / Open House:Opening Reception - Marianetta Porter: Breath\, Fragment\, Return
DESCRIPTION:\n\nOn Thursday\, June 4\, from 6-8 p.m.\, join us for the public opening reception of Marianetta Porter: Breath\, Fragment\, Return at Stamps Gallery.\n\nCurated by Juana Williams\, this exhibition examines how Marianetta Porter uses everyday objects\, fragments\, and embodied memory to make absence an active\, living presence while challenging linear histories. Rooted in African American experience\, her practice treats what is discarded\, overlooked\, or missing not as loss\, but as a source of meaning that continues to act on the present. Through her process and materials\, Porter reveals how memory is carried in the body and embedded in ordinary things. Her work also resists forward-moving notions of time\, instead presenting a diasporic temporality in which past\, present\, and lived experience circulate together through repetition\, touch\, and recall. In doing so\, Porter proposes a vision of history as unfinished\, memory as active\, and absence as a force that sustains connection and shapes the present. \n
UID:147626-21901402@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/147626
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260421T085257
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260605T090000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260605T170000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Debbie Thompson Exhibition
DESCRIPTION:Debbie Thompson works predominantly in clay and draws inspiration from the natural world\, which she frequently references in her work. Her interest in ceramics began in high school when she took classes at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills\, Michigan. She later pursued her passion at the University of Michigan School of Art and Design\, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts. She also holds a Master of Arts from Eastern Michigan University and has completed post-graduate studio coursework at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago\, Maryland Institute College of Art\, Rhode Island School of Design\, and Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts.\n\nThompson taught visual art in the Ann Arbor Public Schools for 34 years and has also taught at the University of Michigan School of Education and Washtenaw Community College. She exhibits her work both locally and nationally and was a member of the Clay Gallery. She continues her practice in her home studio and at the Potters Guild in Ann Arbor\, Michigan. She is a member of the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts and the Michigan Ceramic Art Association. Her work is included in the permanent collection of the International Dinnerware Museum.\n\nThompson’s work has been inspired by the natural world since childhood. Although she initially studied biology in college\, she later shifted her focus to visual art. The textures\, colors\, and forms in her pieces are drawn directly from nature.\nSeeds—structures that have enabled plants to move through space and time for over 600 million years—are central to her recent work. They are vital to the continuation of plant life\, and therefore to human survival.\n\nIn this exhibition\, Thompson explores the unseen structures of seeds as revealed through electron microscopy. These images highlight the intricate beauty and ingenuity of nature\, which she interprets through her wall-mounted ceramic sculptures.\n\nAt a time when our planet and its ecosystems face increasing threats\, Thompson’s work serves as a reminder of the importance of preserving the natural world. Recognizing the beauty and significance of these often-unseen forms is a crucial first step toward protecting the life systems on which we all depend.
UID:147884-21902238@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/147884
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:North Campus Research Complex Building 18 - Connection Gallery
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260529T181513
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260605T100000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260605T120000
SUMMARY:Other:In-Person Tour & Info Session
DESCRIPTION:\n\nVisit the University of Michigan Stamps School of Art & Design for a tour of our facilities and creative studios! Most events will also include an info session and Q&A panel on undergraduate programs and admissions.\n\nIn-Person Tour events take place once a month\; all times are Eastern US.\n\nVisit our Admissions Events page to learn more about additional upcoming events.
UID:148489-21904369@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/148489
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260511T181505
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260605T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260605T190000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Fore-Site (Phase 2): The Stamps Gallery Pillar Project
DESCRIPTION:\n\nFrom September 2025 through November 2026\, Stamps Gallery is partnering in a curatorial collaboration with two Ypsilanti-based\, artist-run project spaces led by Stamps alumni: C.Y.N.K. Studios\, directed by Sally Clegg (Lecturer III and Student Exhibition Coordinator\, MFA ’20) and Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20)\; and Sometimes Space\, directed by Nathan Byrne (Lecturer I\, MFA ’21). Each space hosts dozens of artists annually for exhibitions\, performances\, and events\, fostering experimental work and building community. For this project\, Byrne\, Clegg\, and Narula have been commissioned to reimagine the pillars on Division Street that flank the gallery. In response\, they’ve curated six artists to create new work for the pillars over three cycles:\n\nPhase 1 (September 12 - December 12) artists: Amelia Burns (Cranbrook MFA ’23) and Erin McKenna (MFA ’20)\nPhase 2 (January 12 - August 12) artists: Sally Clegg (MFA ’20) and Kim Karlsrud (MFA ’20)\nPhase 3 (September 12 - November 12) artists: Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20) and Nathan Byrne (MFA ’21)\nPhase 2 Curatorial Statement\n\nCurated by Sometimes Space: Sally Clegg (entry pillar)\nCurated by CYNK Studios: Kim Karlsrud (courtyard pillar)\n\nArtists Sally Clegg and Kim Karlsrud wrap the Division Street pillars in highly site-specific ornament unearthed from the overlooked margins of Ann Arbor. On the Courtyard pillar\, Karlsrud scales up photographs of objects found in liminal spaces surrounding campus buildings on Green Road\, which the artist has encrusted in road salt. On the entryway pillar\, Clegg zooms in on tiny fragments of found material from UMich’s famous “rock” to celebrate nearly seven decades of student art and activism. Both artists uplift aggregate of local human activity to reveal tiny worlds of found form. \n\nSally Clegg: Sentimentary Rock\nSentimentary Rock is a composition of paint slag collected from the UMich rock monument at the corner of Washtenaw Avenue and Hill Street. This colorful composite material has been accumulating at the base of the iconic limestone boulder since the mid 1950’s\, when students began a tradition of painting it in acts of protest\, creativity\, and ritual\, sometimes multiple times per week. Akin to byproducts of industry such as “Fordite” (collectable chunks of automotive overspray sometimes called ‘Detroit agate’)\, Sentimentary Rock includes thousands of layers\, each dripped from a palimpsestic public proclamation. When processed\, sculpted\, sealed\, assembled\, and macro-photographed\, the result is this enlarged array of tiny gems\, intended to celebrate the indissoluble student voice. \n\nKim Karlsrud: What Amasses\nWhat Amasses is an assemblage of everyday found objects collected within the Miller Creek watershed\, an urbanized drainage system that encompasses much of the city of Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan campus. Selected objects were immersed in a road salt solution\, allowing delicate crystalline formations to emerge. Road salt is a common material input into these hydrological networks during the winter months and exists in multiple states of refinement\, expression\, coherence\, and fragmentation. Each object was then arranged\, photographed\, and enlarged to recontextualize these materials in ways that invite deeper reflections on how infrastructure and human agency blur notions of the natural and the artificial. \nArtist Statements/Bios\n\nSally Clegg \nSally Clegg is an artist and educator from Pelham\, Massachusetts. Her studio practice is rooted in sculpture and expanded printmaking\, stemming from a fascination with human efforts to make meaning from our relationships to objects. Clegg integrates history\, popular culture\, literature and philosophy as material for artmaking\, leveraging personal anecdote and humor to reveal the complexity\, absurdity\, and theoretical richness at play in our connections to things and to ourselves. \n\nClegg holds an MFA in Art from The University of Michigan Stamps School of Art & Design\, and a BA in Art & English from Goucher College. She has exhibited nationally and internationally\, and her work can be found in permanent collections at Yale University\, The New York Public Library\, and elsewhere. Her artwork and writing has appeared in ASAP/Journal\, BOMB Magazine\, Sculpture Magazine\, and Hyperallergic. She is a lecturer in Art & Design at the University of Michigan. Website / Instagram\n\n\nKim Karlsrud \nKim Karlsrud is the co-founder of Commonstudio\, a collaborative creative practice that develops socio-ecological and spatial interventions\, installations\, and initiatives working with and within urban landscapes. Her work explores the space between art and design\, and is grounded in the concept of the “commons\,” that which is shared\, as well as that which is ordinary\, banal\, and commonplace.\n\nKarlsrud completed her undergraduate degree in Product Design from Otis College of Art and Design and an MFA in Art from the University of Michigan. She is currently an Assistant Visiting Professor in the College of Design at the University of Oregon\, teaching across Art and Landscape Architecture departments. She jointly received the 2014-15 Prince Charitable Trust Rome Prize in Landscape Architecture\, was a 2017 resident at the Headlands Center for the Arts\, and is the 2025-26 Fuller Fieldscape Fellow. Website / Instagram
UID:138032-21903385@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/138032
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20250828T001529
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260605T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260605T190000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Fore-Site (Phase 3): The Stamps Gallery Pillar Project
DESCRIPTION:From September 2025 through August 2026\, Stamps Gallery is partnering in a curatorial collaboration with two Ypsilanti-based\, artist-run project spaces led by Stamps alumni: C.Y.N.K. Studios\, directed by Sally Clegg (Lecturer III and Student Exhibition Coordinator\, MFA ’20) and Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20)\; and Sometimes Space\, directed by Nathan Byrne (Lecturer I\, MFA ’21). Each space hosts dozens of artists annually for exhibitions\, performances\, and events\, fostering experimental work and building community. For this project\, Byrne\, Clegg\, and Narula have been commissioned to reimagine the pillars on Division Street that flank the gallery. In response\, they've curated six artists to create new work for the pillars over three cycles:\nPhase 1 (September 12 - December 12) artists: Amelia Burns (Cranbrook MFA '23) and Erin McKenna (MFA '20)Phase 2 (January 12 - April 12) artists: Sally Clegg (MFA '20) and Kim Karlsrud (MFA '20)Phase 3 (May 12 - August 12) artists: Abhishek Narula (MFA '20) and Nathan Byrne (MFA '21)\nPhase 3 \nCurated by Sometimes Space: Abhishek Narula (entry pillar)Curated by CYNK Studios: Nathan Byrne (courtyard pillar)
UID:138033-21881341@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/138033
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260608T121512
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260605T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260605T170000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Marianetta Porter: Breath\, Fragment\, Return
DESCRIPTION:\n\nCurated by Juana Williams\, this exhibition examines how Marianetta Porter uses everyday objects\, fragments\, and embodied memory to make absence an active\, living presence while challenging linear histories. Rooted in African American experience\, her practice treats what is discarded\, overlooked\, or missing not as loss\, but as a source of meaning that continues to act on the present. Through her process and materials\, Porter reveals how memory is carried in the body and embedded in ordinary things. Her work also resists forward-moving notions of time\, instead presenting a diasporic temporality in which past\, present\, and lived experience circulate together through repetition\, touch\, and recall. In doing so\, Porter proposes a vision of history as unfinished\, memory as active\, and absence as a force that sustains connection and shapes the present. \n\nMarianetta Porter is a visual artist and product designer whose research and creative practice are grounded in the study of African American history\, culture\, and representation. Through the language of visual art\, she draws connections between historic memory and contemporary African American life\, giving voice to the history of the African diaspora while acknowledging its central influence on the birth and flourishing of American culture.\n\nHer work has been exhibited nationally at institutions such as the Indianapolis Museum of Art\, the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry\, the Spoleto Festival\, the Harriet Tubman Museum\, and the Hampton University Museum of Art.\n\nShe earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts from Hampton University and her Master of Fine Arts from the University of Michigan. The recipient of numerous awards\, Porter is Professor Emeritus at the University of Michigan’s Stamps School of Art and Design.\n\nJuana Williams is a curator and writer whose work explores the intersections of cross-border intellectual history\, cultural memory\, and identity formation as expressed through modern and contemporary art from Africa and its diasporas.\n\nWilliams has held curatorial and academic appointments at organizations including the Detroit Institute of Arts\, Library Street Collective\, Wayne State University\, and the Urban Institute for Contemporary Art. Her curatorial projects have been presented at institutions across the United States and France\, including the Grand Rapids Art Museum\, the Muskegon Museum of Art\, Palais de Tokyo (Paris)\, and the Westmoreland Museum of American Art. In addition\, she has presented lectures at various museums and universities and contributed to numerous exhibition catalogs. Her work has been written about in publications such as Artsy\, Beaux Arts Magazine\, Condé Nast Traveller\, Michigan Chronicle\, and Observer. Williams holds a BA in Fine Art and an MA in Art History from Wayne State University.
UID:147625-21901372@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/147625
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260528T143201
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260605T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260605T180000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:You Next
DESCRIPTION:The University of Michigan Duderstadt Center Gallery presents “You Next”\, a duo exhibition by Thede Ambrose and Kate Donoghue\, curated by Nathan Byrne.\n\nOpening: Friday\, May 29th 6-9pm\nClosing: Sunday\, June 28th 2-5pm\n\nArtifacts\, Illusion\, and the Speculative mediate the exchange between Thede Ambrose and Kate Donoghue’s practices.\n\nReferencing both personal and found documentary and advertisement imagery\, Donoghue investigates the vacuous and hauntingly banal underbelly of commercial aspirations\, constructing paintings that collapse expectations of consumerism into innate and corrupted desires.\n\nAmbrose navigates mediated violence\, spirituality\, and the abject\, manifesting in perverse articulations of belief and reality. Imagistic sculpture and installation are generated through an expansive material interest\, and an extensive archive of found imagery.\n\n“You Next” presents the collisions of these practices. Cautionary tales\, dreams\, and fantasies of objectification come to a head in this collaboration between the two artists.\n\nGallery Hours: Tuesday - Friday\, Noon-6pm and Sunday Noon-6 pm
UID:148455-21904305@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/148455
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Duderstadt Center - Gallery 1019
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260511T181505
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260606T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260606T190000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Fore-Site (Phase 2): The Stamps Gallery Pillar Project
DESCRIPTION:\n\nFrom September 2025 through November 2026\, Stamps Gallery is partnering in a curatorial collaboration with two Ypsilanti-based\, artist-run project spaces led by Stamps alumni: C.Y.N.K. Studios\, directed by Sally Clegg (Lecturer III and Student Exhibition Coordinator\, MFA ’20) and Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20)\; and Sometimes Space\, directed by Nathan Byrne (Lecturer I\, MFA ’21). Each space hosts dozens of artists annually for exhibitions\, performances\, and events\, fostering experimental work and building community. For this project\, Byrne\, Clegg\, and Narula have been commissioned to reimagine the pillars on Division Street that flank the gallery. In response\, they’ve curated six artists to create new work for the pillars over three cycles:\n\nPhase 1 (September 12 - December 12) artists: Amelia Burns (Cranbrook MFA ’23) and Erin McKenna (MFA ’20)\nPhase 2 (January 12 - August 12) artists: Sally Clegg (MFA ’20) and Kim Karlsrud (MFA ’20)\nPhase 3 (September 12 - November 12) artists: Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20) and Nathan Byrne (MFA ’21)\nPhase 2 Curatorial Statement\n\nCurated by Sometimes Space: Sally Clegg (entry pillar)\nCurated by CYNK Studios: Kim Karlsrud (courtyard pillar)\n\nArtists Sally Clegg and Kim Karlsrud wrap the Division Street pillars in highly site-specific ornament unearthed from the overlooked margins of Ann Arbor. On the Courtyard pillar\, Karlsrud scales up photographs of objects found in liminal spaces surrounding campus buildings on Green Road\, which the artist has encrusted in road salt. On the entryway pillar\, Clegg zooms in on tiny fragments of found material from UMich’s famous “rock” to celebrate nearly seven decades of student art and activism. Both artists uplift aggregate of local human activity to reveal tiny worlds of found form. \n\nSally Clegg: Sentimentary Rock\nSentimentary Rock is a composition of paint slag collected from the UMich rock monument at the corner of Washtenaw Avenue and Hill Street. This colorful composite material has been accumulating at the base of the iconic limestone boulder since the mid 1950’s\, when students began a tradition of painting it in acts of protest\, creativity\, and ritual\, sometimes multiple times per week. Akin to byproducts of industry such as “Fordite” (collectable chunks of automotive overspray sometimes called ‘Detroit agate’)\, Sentimentary Rock includes thousands of layers\, each dripped from a palimpsestic public proclamation. When processed\, sculpted\, sealed\, assembled\, and macro-photographed\, the result is this enlarged array of tiny gems\, intended to celebrate the indissoluble student voice. \n\nKim Karlsrud: What Amasses\nWhat Amasses is an assemblage of everyday found objects collected within the Miller Creek watershed\, an urbanized drainage system that encompasses much of the city of Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan campus. Selected objects were immersed in a road salt solution\, allowing delicate crystalline formations to emerge. Road salt is a common material input into these hydrological networks during the winter months and exists in multiple states of refinement\, expression\, coherence\, and fragmentation. Each object was then arranged\, photographed\, and enlarged to recontextualize these materials in ways that invite deeper reflections on how infrastructure and human agency blur notions of the natural and the artificial. \nArtist Statements/Bios\n\nSally Clegg \nSally Clegg is an artist and educator from Pelham\, Massachusetts. Her studio practice is rooted in sculpture and expanded printmaking\, stemming from a fascination with human efforts to make meaning from our relationships to objects. Clegg integrates history\, popular culture\, literature and philosophy as material for artmaking\, leveraging personal anecdote and humor to reveal the complexity\, absurdity\, and theoretical richness at play in our connections to things and to ourselves. \n\nClegg holds an MFA in Art from The University of Michigan Stamps School of Art & Design\, and a BA in Art & English from Goucher College. She has exhibited nationally and internationally\, and her work can be found in permanent collections at Yale University\, The New York Public Library\, and elsewhere. Her artwork and writing has appeared in ASAP/Journal\, BOMB Magazine\, Sculpture Magazine\, and Hyperallergic. She is a lecturer in Art & Design at the University of Michigan. Website / Instagram\n\n\nKim Karlsrud \nKim Karlsrud is the co-founder of Commonstudio\, a collaborative creative practice that develops socio-ecological and spatial interventions\, installations\, and initiatives working with and within urban landscapes. Her work explores the space between art and design\, and is grounded in the concept of the “commons\,” that which is shared\, as well as that which is ordinary\, banal\, and commonplace.\n\nKarlsrud completed her undergraduate degree in Product Design from Otis College of Art and Design and an MFA in Art from the University of Michigan. She is currently an Assistant Visiting Professor in the College of Design at the University of Oregon\, teaching across Art and Landscape Architecture departments. She jointly received the 2014-15 Prince Charitable Trust Rome Prize in Landscape Architecture\, was a 2017 resident at the Headlands Center for the Arts\, and is the 2025-26 Fuller Fieldscape Fellow. Website / Instagram
UID:138032-21903386@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/138032
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20250828T001529
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260606T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260606T190000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Fore-Site (Phase 3): The Stamps Gallery Pillar Project
DESCRIPTION:From September 2025 through August 2026\, Stamps Gallery is partnering in a curatorial collaboration with two Ypsilanti-based\, artist-run project spaces led by Stamps alumni: C.Y.N.K. Studios\, directed by Sally Clegg (Lecturer III and Student Exhibition Coordinator\, MFA ’20) and Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20)\; and Sometimes Space\, directed by Nathan Byrne (Lecturer I\, MFA ’21). Each space hosts dozens of artists annually for exhibitions\, performances\, and events\, fostering experimental work and building community. For this project\, Byrne\, Clegg\, and Narula have been commissioned to reimagine the pillars on Division Street that flank the gallery. In response\, they've curated six artists to create new work for the pillars over three cycles:\nPhase 1 (September 12 - December 12) artists: Amelia Burns (Cranbrook MFA '23) and Erin McKenna (MFA '20)Phase 2 (January 12 - April 12) artists: Sally Clegg (MFA '20) and Kim Karlsrud (MFA '20)Phase 3 (May 12 - August 12) artists: Abhishek Narula (MFA '20) and Nathan Byrne (MFA '21)\nPhase 3 \nCurated by Sometimes Space: Abhishek Narula (entry pillar)Curated by CYNK Studios: Nathan Byrne (courtyard pillar)
UID:138033-21881342@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/138033
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260608T121512
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260606T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260606T170000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Marianetta Porter: Breath\, Fragment\, Return
DESCRIPTION:\n\nCurated by Juana Williams\, this exhibition examines how Marianetta Porter uses everyday objects\, fragments\, and embodied memory to make absence an active\, living presence while challenging linear histories. Rooted in African American experience\, her practice treats what is discarded\, overlooked\, or missing not as loss\, but as a source of meaning that continues to act on the present. Through her process and materials\, Porter reveals how memory is carried in the body and embedded in ordinary things. Her work also resists forward-moving notions of time\, instead presenting a diasporic temporality in which past\, present\, and lived experience circulate together through repetition\, touch\, and recall. In doing so\, Porter proposes a vision of history as unfinished\, memory as active\, and absence as a force that sustains connection and shapes the present. \n\nMarianetta Porter is a visual artist and product designer whose research and creative practice are grounded in the study of African American history\, culture\, and representation. Through the language of visual art\, she draws connections between historic memory and contemporary African American life\, giving voice to the history of the African diaspora while acknowledging its central influence on the birth and flourishing of American culture.\n\nHer work has been exhibited nationally at institutions such as the Indianapolis Museum of Art\, the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry\, the Spoleto Festival\, the Harriet Tubman Museum\, and the Hampton University Museum of Art.\n\nShe earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts from Hampton University and her Master of Fine Arts from the University of Michigan. The recipient of numerous awards\, Porter is Professor Emeritus at the University of Michigan’s Stamps School of Art and Design.\n\nJuana Williams is a curator and writer whose work explores the intersections of cross-border intellectual history\, cultural memory\, and identity formation as expressed through modern and contemporary art from Africa and its diasporas.\n\nWilliams has held curatorial and academic appointments at organizations including the Detroit Institute of Arts\, Library Street Collective\, Wayne State University\, and the Urban Institute for Contemporary Art. Her curatorial projects have been presented at institutions across the United States and France\, including the Grand Rapids Art Museum\, the Muskegon Museum of Art\, Palais de Tokyo (Paris)\, and the Westmoreland Museum of American Art. In addition\, she has presented lectures at various museums and universities and contributed to numerous exhibition catalogs. Her work has been written about in publications such as Artsy\, Beaux Arts Magazine\, Condé Nast Traveller\, Michigan Chronicle\, and Observer. Williams holds a BA in Fine Art and an MA in Art History from Wayne State University.
UID:147625-21901373@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/147625
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260528T143201
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260607T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260607T180000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:You Next
DESCRIPTION:The University of Michigan Duderstadt Center Gallery presents “You Next”\, a duo exhibition by Thede Ambrose and Kate Donoghue\, curated by Nathan Byrne.\n\nOpening: Friday\, May 29th 6-9pm\nClosing: Sunday\, June 28th 2-5pm\n\nArtifacts\, Illusion\, and the Speculative mediate the exchange between Thede Ambrose and Kate Donoghue’s practices.\n\nReferencing both personal and found documentary and advertisement imagery\, Donoghue investigates the vacuous and hauntingly banal underbelly of commercial aspirations\, constructing paintings that collapse expectations of consumerism into innate and corrupted desires.\n\nAmbrose navigates mediated violence\, spirituality\, and the abject\, manifesting in perverse articulations of belief and reality. Imagistic sculpture and installation are generated through an expansive material interest\, and an extensive archive of found imagery.\n\n“You Next” presents the collisions of these practices. Cautionary tales\, dreams\, and fantasies of objectification come to a head in this collaboration between the two artists.\n\nGallery Hours: Tuesday - Friday\, Noon-6pm and Sunday Noon-6 pm
UID:148455-21904307@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/148455
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Duderstadt Center - Gallery 1019
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260421T085257
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260608T090000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260608T170000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Debbie Thompson Exhibition
DESCRIPTION:Debbie Thompson works predominantly in clay and draws inspiration from the natural world\, which she frequently references in her work. Her interest in ceramics began in high school when she took classes at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills\, Michigan. She later pursued her passion at the University of Michigan School of Art and Design\, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts. She also holds a Master of Arts from Eastern Michigan University and has completed post-graduate studio coursework at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago\, Maryland Institute College of Art\, Rhode Island School of Design\, and Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts.\n\nThompson taught visual art in the Ann Arbor Public Schools for 34 years and has also taught at the University of Michigan School of Education and Washtenaw Community College. She exhibits her work both locally and nationally and was a member of the Clay Gallery. She continues her practice in her home studio and at the Potters Guild in Ann Arbor\, Michigan. She is a member of the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts and the Michigan Ceramic Art Association. Her work is included in the permanent collection of the International Dinnerware Museum.\n\nThompson’s work has been inspired by the natural world since childhood. Although she initially studied biology in college\, she later shifted her focus to visual art. The textures\, colors\, and forms in her pieces are drawn directly from nature.\nSeeds—structures that have enabled plants to move through space and time for over 600 million years—are central to her recent work. They are vital to the continuation of plant life\, and therefore to human survival.\n\nIn this exhibition\, Thompson explores the unseen structures of seeds as revealed through electron microscopy. These images highlight the intricate beauty and ingenuity of nature\, which she interprets through her wall-mounted ceramic sculptures.\n\nAt a time when our planet and its ecosystems face increasing threats\, Thompson’s work serves as a reminder of the importance of preserving the natural world. Recognizing the beauty and significance of these often-unseen forms is a crucial first step toward protecting the life systems on which we all depend.
UID:147884-21902241@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/147884
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:North Campus Research Complex Building 18 - Connection Gallery
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260529T181515
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260608T150000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260608T160000
SUMMARY:Other:Virtual Information Session
DESCRIPTION:\n\nJoin us for a virtual\, hour-long info session on undergraduate programs at the University of Michigan Stamps School of Art & Design\, including a presentation and Q&A with current students and the admissions team.\n\nInfo session times are Eastern US.\n\nVisit our Admissions Events page to learn more about additional upcoming events.
UID:148490-21904370@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/148490
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260421T085257
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260609T090000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260609T170000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Debbie Thompson Exhibition
DESCRIPTION:Debbie Thompson works predominantly in clay and draws inspiration from the natural world\, which she frequently references in her work. Her interest in ceramics began in high school when she took classes at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills\, Michigan. She later pursued her passion at the University of Michigan School of Art and Design\, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts. She also holds a Master of Arts from Eastern Michigan University and has completed post-graduate studio coursework at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago\, Maryland Institute College of Art\, Rhode Island School of Design\, and Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts.\n\nThompson taught visual art in the Ann Arbor Public Schools for 34 years and has also taught at the University of Michigan School of Education and Washtenaw Community College. She exhibits her work both locally and nationally and was a member of the Clay Gallery. She continues her practice in her home studio and at the Potters Guild in Ann Arbor\, Michigan. She is a member of the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts and the Michigan Ceramic Art Association. Her work is included in the permanent collection of the International Dinnerware Museum.\n\nThompson’s work has been inspired by the natural world since childhood. Although she initially studied biology in college\, she later shifted her focus to visual art. The textures\, colors\, and forms in her pieces are drawn directly from nature.\nSeeds—structures that have enabled plants to move through space and time for over 600 million years—are central to her recent work. They are vital to the continuation of plant life\, and therefore to human survival.\n\nIn this exhibition\, Thompson explores the unseen structures of seeds as revealed through electron microscopy. These images highlight the intricate beauty and ingenuity of nature\, which she interprets through her wall-mounted ceramic sculptures.\n\nAt a time when our planet and its ecosystems face increasing threats\, Thompson’s work serves as a reminder of the importance of preserving the natural world. Recognizing the beauty and significance of these often-unseen forms is a crucial first step toward protecting the life systems on which we all depend.
UID:147884-21902242@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/147884
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:North Campus Research Complex Building 18 - Connection Gallery
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260528T143201
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260609T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260609T180000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:You Next
DESCRIPTION:The University of Michigan Duderstadt Center Gallery presents “You Next”\, a duo exhibition by Thede Ambrose and Kate Donoghue\, curated by Nathan Byrne.\n\nOpening: Friday\, May 29th 6-9pm\nClosing: Sunday\, June 28th 2-5pm\n\nArtifacts\, Illusion\, and the Speculative mediate the exchange between Thede Ambrose and Kate Donoghue’s practices.\n\nReferencing both personal and found documentary and advertisement imagery\, Donoghue investigates the vacuous and hauntingly banal underbelly of commercial aspirations\, constructing paintings that collapse expectations of consumerism into innate and corrupted desires.\n\nAmbrose navigates mediated violence\, spirituality\, and the abject\, manifesting in perverse articulations of belief and reality. Imagistic sculpture and installation are generated through an expansive material interest\, and an extensive archive of found imagery.\n\n“You Next” presents the collisions of these practices. Cautionary tales\, dreams\, and fantasies of objectification come to a head in this collaboration between the two artists.\n\nGallery Hours: Tuesday - Friday\, Noon-6pm and Sunday Noon-6 pm
UID:148455-21904309@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/148455
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Duderstadt Center - Gallery 1019
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260421T085257
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260610T090000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260610T170000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Debbie Thompson Exhibition
DESCRIPTION:Debbie Thompson works predominantly in clay and draws inspiration from the natural world\, which she frequently references in her work. Her interest in ceramics began in high school when she took classes at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills\, Michigan. She later pursued her passion at the University of Michigan School of Art and Design\, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts. She also holds a Master of Arts from Eastern Michigan University and has completed post-graduate studio coursework at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago\, Maryland Institute College of Art\, Rhode Island School of Design\, and Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts.\n\nThompson taught visual art in the Ann Arbor Public Schools for 34 years and has also taught at the University of Michigan School of Education and Washtenaw Community College. She exhibits her work both locally and nationally and was a member of the Clay Gallery. She continues her practice in her home studio and at the Potters Guild in Ann Arbor\, Michigan. She is a member of the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts and the Michigan Ceramic Art Association. Her work is included in the permanent collection of the International Dinnerware Museum.\n\nThompson’s work has been inspired by the natural world since childhood. Although she initially studied biology in college\, she later shifted her focus to visual art. The textures\, colors\, and forms in her pieces are drawn directly from nature.\nSeeds—structures that have enabled plants to move through space and time for over 600 million years—are central to her recent work. They are vital to the continuation of plant life\, and therefore to human survival.\n\nIn this exhibition\, Thompson explores the unseen structures of seeds as revealed through electron microscopy. These images highlight the intricate beauty and ingenuity of nature\, which she interprets through her wall-mounted ceramic sculptures.\n\nAt a time when our planet and its ecosystems face increasing threats\, Thompson’s work serves as a reminder of the importance of preserving the natural world. Recognizing the beauty and significance of these often-unseen forms is a crucial first step toward protecting the life systems on which we all depend.
UID:147884-21902243@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/147884
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:North Campus Research Complex Building 18 - Connection Gallery
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260511T181505
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260610T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260610T190000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Fore-Site (Phase 2): The Stamps Gallery Pillar Project
DESCRIPTION:\n\nFrom September 2025 through November 2026\, Stamps Gallery is partnering in a curatorial collaboration with two Ypsilanti-based\, artist-run project spaces led by Stamps alumni: C.Y.N.K. Studios\, directed by Sally Clegg (Lecturer III and Student Exhibition Coordinator\, MFA ’20) and Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20)\; and Sometimes Space\, directed by Nathan Byrne (Lecturer I\, MFA ’21). Each space hosts dozens of artists annually for exhibitions\, performances\, and events\, fostering experimental work and building community. For this project\, Byrne\, Clegg\, and Narula have been commissioned to reimagine the pillars on Division Street that flank the gallery. In response\, they’ve curated six artists to create new work for the pillars over three cycles:\n\nPhase 1 (September 12 - December 12) artists: Amelia Burns (Cranbrook MFA ’23) and Erin McKenna (MFA ’20)\nPhase 2 (January 12 - August 12) artists: Sally Clegg (MFA ’20) and Kim Karlsrud (MFA ’20)\nPhase 3 (September 12 - November 12) artists: Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20) and Nathan Byrne (MFA ’21)\nPhase 2 Curatorial Statement\n\nCurated by Sometimes Space: Sally Clegg (entry pillar)\nCurated by CYNK Studios: Kim Karlsrud (courtyard pillar)\n\nArtists Sally Clegg and Kim Karlsrud wrap the Division Street pillars in highly site-specific ornament unearthed from the overlooked margins of Ann Arbor. On the Courtyard pillar\, Karlsrud scales up photographs of objects found in liminal spaces surrounding campus buildings on Green Road\, which the artist has encrusted in road salt. On the entryway pillar\, Clegg zooms in on tiny fragments of found material from UMich’s famous “rock” to celebrate nearly seven decades of student art and activism. Both artists uplift aggregate of local human activity to reveal tiny worlds of found form. \n\nSally Clegg: Sentimentary Rock\nSentimentary Rock is a composition of paint slag collected from the UMich rock monument at the corner of Washtenaw Avenue and Hill Street. This colorful composite material has been accumulating at the base of the iconic limestone boulder since the mid 1950’s\, when students began a tradition of painting it in acts of protest\, creativity\, and ritual\, sometimes multiple times per week. Akin to byproducts of industry such as “Fordite” (collectable chunks of automotive overspray sometimes called ‘Detroit agate’)\, Sentimentary Rock includes thousands of layers\, each dripped from a palimpsestic public proclamation. When processed\, sculpted\, sealed\, assembled\, and macro-photographed\, the result is this enlarged array of tiny gems\, intended to celebrate the indissoluble student voice. \n\nKim Karlsrud: What Amasses\nWhat Amasses is an assemblage of everyday found objects collected within the Miller Creek watershed\, an urbanized drainage system that encompasses much of the city of Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan campus. Selected objects were immersed in a road salt solution\, allowing delicate crystalline formations to emerge. Road salt is a common material input into these hydrological networks during the winter months and exists in multiple states of refinement\, expression\, coherence\, and fragmentation. Each object was then arranged\, photographed\, and enlarged to recontextualize these materials in ways that invite deeper reflections on how infrastructure and human agency blur notions of the natural and the artificial. \nArtist Statements/Bios\n\nSally Clegg \nSally Clegg is an artist and educator from Pelham\, Massachusetts. Her studio practice is rooted in sculpture and expanded printmaking\, stemming from a fascination with human efforts to make meaning from our relationships to objects. Clegg integrates history\, popular culture\, literature and philosophy as material for artmaking\, leveraging personal anecdote and humor to reveal the complexity\, absurdity\, and theoretical richness at play in our connections to things and to ourselves. \n\nClegg holds an MFA in Art from The University of Michigan Stamps School of Art & Design\, and a BA in Art & English from Goucher College. She has exhibited nationally and internationally\, and her work can be found in permanent collections at Yale University\, The New York Public Library\, and elsewhere. Her artwork and writing has appeared in ASAP/Journal\, BOMB Magazine\, Sculpture Magazine\, and Hyperallergic. She is a lecturer in Art & Design at the University of Michigan. Website / Instagram\n\n\nKim Karlsrud \nKim Karlsrud is the co-founder of Commonstudio\, a collaborative creative practice that develops socio-ecological and spatial interventions\, installations\, and initiatives working with and within urban landscapes. Her work explores the space between art and design\, and is grounded in the concept of the “commons\,” that which is shared\, as well as that which is ordinary\, banal\, and commonplace.\n\nKarlsrud completed her undergraduate degree in Product Design from Otis College of Art and Design and an MFA in Art from the University of Michigan. She is currently an Assistant Visiting Professor in the College of Design at the University of Oregon\, teaching across Art and Landscape Architecture departments. She jointly received the 2014-15 Prince Charitable Trust Rome Prize in Landscape Architecture\, was a 2017 resident at the Headlands Center for the Arts\, and is the 2025-26 Fuller Fieldscape Fellow. Website / Instagram
UID:138032-21903387@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/138032
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20250828T001529
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260610T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260610T190000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Fore-Site (Phase 3): The Stamps Gallery Pillar Project
DESCRIPTION:From September 2025 through August 2026\, Stamps Gallery is partnering in a curatorial collaboration with two Ypsilanti-based\, artist-run project spaces led by Stamps alumni: C.Y.N.K. Studios\, directed by Sally Clegg (Lecturer III and Student Exhibition Coordinator\, MFA ’20) and Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20)\; and Sometimes Space\, directed by Nathan Byrne (Lecturer I\, MFA ’21). Each space hosts dozens of artists annually for exhibitions\, performances\, and events\, fostering experimental work and building community. For this project\, Byrne\, Clegg\, and Narula have been commissioned to reimagine the pillars on Division Street that flank the gallery. In response\, they've curated six artists to create new work for the pillars over three cycles:\nPhase 1 (September 12 - December 12) artists: Amelia Burns (Cranbrook MFA '23) and Erin McKenna (MFA '20)Phase 2 (January 12 - April 12) artists: Sally Clegg (MFA '20) and Kim Karlsrud (MFA '20)Phase 3 (May 12 - August 12) artists: Abhishek Narula (MFA '20) and Nathan Byrne (MFA '21)\nPhase 3 \nCurated by Sometimes Space: Abhishek Narula (entry pillar)Curated by CYNK Studios: Nathan Byrne (courtyard pillar)
UID:138033-21881343@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/138033
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260608T121512
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260610T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260610T170000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Marianetta Porter: Breath\, Fragment\, Return
DESCRIPTION:\n\nCurated by Juana Williams\, this exhibition examines how Marianetta Porter uses everyday objects\, fragments\, and embodied memory to make absence an active\, living presence while challenging linear histories. Rooted in African American experience\, her practice treats what is discarded\, overlooked\, or missing not as loss\, but as a source of meaning that continues to act on the present. Through her process and materials\, Porter reveals how memory is carried in the body and embedded in ordinary things. Her work also resists forward-moving notions of time\, instead presenting a diasporic temporality in which past\, present\, and lived experience circulate together through repetition\, touch\, and recall. In doing so\, Porter proposes a vision of history as unfinished\, memory as active\, and absence as a force that sustains connection and shapes the present. \n\nMarianetta Porter is a visual artist and product designer whose research and creative practice are grounded in the study of African American history\, culture\, and representation. Through the language of visual art\, she draws connections between historic memory and contemporary African American life\, giving voice to the history of the African diaspora while acknowledging its central influence on the birth and flourishing of American culture.\n\nHer work has been exhibited nationally at institutions such as the Indianapolis Museum of Art\, the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry\, the Spoleto Festival\, the Harriet Tubman Museum\, and the Hampton University Museum of Art.\n\nShe earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts from Hampton University and her Master of Fine Arts from the University of Michigan. The recipient of numerous awards\, Porter is Professor Emeritus at the University of Michigan’s Stamps School of Art and Design.\n\nJuana Williams is a curator and writer whose work explores the intersections of cross-border intellectual history\, cultural memory\, and identity formation as expressed through modern and contemporary art from Africa and its diasporas.\n\nWilliams has held curatorial and academic appointments at organizations including the Detroit Institute of Arts\, Library Street Collective\, Wayne State University\, and the Urban Institute for Contemporary Art. Her curatorial projects have been presented at institutions across the United States and France\, including the Grand Rapids Art Museum\, the Muskegon Museum of Art\, Palais de Tokyo (Paris)\, and the Westmoreland Museum of American Art. In addition\, she has presented lectures at various museums and universities and contributed to numerous exhibition catalogs. Her work has been written about in publications such as Artsy\, Beaux Arts Magazine\, Condé Nast Traveller\, Michigan Chronicle\, and Observer. Williams holds a BA in Fine Art and an MA in Art History from Wayne State University.
UID:147625-21901374@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/147625
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260528T143201
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260610T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260610T180000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:You Next
DESCRIPTION:The University of Michigan Duderstadt Center Gallery presents “You Next”\, a duo exhibition by Thede Ambrose and Kate Donoghue\, curated by Nathan Byrne.\n\nOpening: Friday\, May 29th 6-9pm\nClosing: Sunday\, June 28th 2-5pm\n\nArtifacts\, Illusion\, and the Speculative mediate the exchange between Thede Ambrose and Kate Donoghue’s practices.\n\nReferencing both personal and found documentary and advertisement imagery\, Donoghue investigates the vacuous and hauntingly banal underbelly of commercial aspirations\, constructing paintings that collapse expectations of consumerism into innate and corrupted desires.\n\nAmbrose navigates mediated violence\, spirituality\, and the abject\, manifesting in perverse articulations of belief and reality. Imagistic sculpture and installation are generated through an expansive material interest\, and an extensive archive of found imagery.\n\n“You Next” presents the collisions of these practices. Cautionary tales\, dreams\, and fantasies of objectification come to a head in this collaboration between the two artists.\n\nGallery Hours: Tuesday - Friday\, Noon-6pm and Sunday Noon-6 pm
UID:148455-21904310@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/148455
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Duderstadt Center - Gallery 1019
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260421T085257
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260611T090000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260611T170000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Debbie Thompson Exhibition
DESCRIPTION:Debbie Thompson works predominantly in clay and draws inspiration from the natural world\, which she frequently references in her work. Her interest in ceramics began in high school when she took classes at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills\, Michigan. She later pursued her passion at the University of Michigan School of Art and Design\, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts. She also holds a Master of Arts from Eastern Michigan University and has completed post-graduate studio coursework at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago\, Maryland Institute College of Art\, Rhode Island School of Design\, and Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts.\n\nThompson taught visual art in the Ann Arbor Public Schools for 34 years and has also taught at the University of Michigan School of Education and Washtenaw Community College. She exhibits her work both locally and nationally and was a member of the Clay Gallery. She continues her practice in her home studio and at the Potters Guild in Ann Arbor\, Michigan. She is a member of the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts and the Michigan Ceramic Art Association. Her work is included in the permanent collection of the International Dinnerware Museum.\n\nThompson’s work has been inspired by the natural world since childhood. Although she initially studied biology in college\, she later shifted her focus to visual art. The textures\, colors\, and forms in her pieces are drawn directly from nature.\nSeeds—structures that have enabled plants to move through space and time for over 600 million years—are central to her recent work. They are vital to the continuation of plant life\, and therefore to human survival.\n\nIn this exhibition\, Thompson explores the unseen structures of seeds as revealed through electron microscopy. These images highlight the intricate beauty and ingenuity of nature\, which she interprets through her wall-mounted ceramic sculptures.\n\nAt a time when our planet and its ecosystems face increasing threats\, Thompson’s work serves as a reminder of the importance of preserving the natural world. Recognizing the beauty and significance of these often-unseen forms is a crucial first step toward protecting the life systems on which we all depend.
UID:147884-21902244@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/147884
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:North Campus Research Complex Building 18 - Connection Gallery
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260511T181505
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260611T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260611T190000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Fore-Site (Phase 2): The Stamps Gallery Pillar Project
DESCRIPTION:\n\nFrom September 2025 through November 2026\, Stamps Gallery is partnering in a curatorial collaboration with two Ypsilanti-based\, artist-run project spaces led by Stamps alumni: C.Y.N.K. Studios\, directed by Sally Clegg (Lecturer III and Student Exhibition Coordinator\, MFA ’20) and Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20)\; and Sometimes Space\, directed by Nathan Byrne (Lecturer I\, MFA ’21). Each space hosts dozens of artists annually for exhibitions\, performances\, and events\, fostering experimental work and building community. For this project\, Byrne\, Clegg\, and Narula have been commissioned to reimagine the pillars on Division Street that flank the gallery. In response\, they’ve curated six artists to create new work for the pillars over three cycles:\n\nPhase 1 (September 12 - December 12) artists: Amelia Burns (Cranbrook MFA ’23) and Erin McKenna (MFA ’20)\nPhase 2 (January 12 - August 12) artists: Sally Clegg (MFA ’20) and Kim Karlsrud (MFA ’20)\nPhase 3 (September 12 - November 12) artists: Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20) and Nathan Byrne (MFA ’21)\nPhase 2 Curatorial Statement\n\nCurated by Sometimes Space: Sally Clegg (entry pillar)\nCurated by CYNK Studios: Kim Karlsrud (courtyard pillar)\n\nArtists Sally Clegg and Kim Karlsrud wrap the Division Street pillars in highly site-specific ornament unearthed from the overlooked margins of Ann Arbor. On the Courtyard pillar\, Karlsrud scales up photographs of objects found in liminal spaces surrounding campus buildings on Green Road\, which the artist has encrusted in road salt. On the entryway pillar\, Clegg zooms in on tiny fragments of found material from UMich’s famous “rock” to celebrate nearly seven decades of student art and activism. Both artists uplift aggregate of local human activity to reveal tiny worlds of found form. \n\nSally Clegg: Sentimentary Rock\nSentimentary Rock is a composition of paint slag collected from the UMich rock monument at the corner of Washtenaw Avenue and Hill Street. This colorful composite material has been accumulating at the base of the iconic limestone boulder since the mid 1950’s\, when students began a tradition of painting it in acts of protest\, creativity\, and ritual\, sometimes multiple times per week. Akin to byproducts of industry such as “Fordite” (collectable chunks of automotive overspray sometimes called ‘Detroit agate’)\, Sentimentary Rock includes thousands of layers\, each dripped from a palimpsestic public proclamation. When processed\, sculpted\, sealed\, assembled\, and macro-photographed\, the result is this enlarged array of tiny gems\, intended to celebrate the indissoluble student voice. \n\nKim Karlsrud: What Amasses\nWhat Amasses is an assemblage of everyday found objects collected within the Miller Creek watershed\, an urbanized drainage system that encompasses much of the city of Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan campus. Selected objects were immersed in a road salt solution\, allowing delicate crystalline formations to emerge. Road salt is a common material input into these hydrological networks during the winter months and exists in multiple states of refinement\, expression\, coherence\, and fragmentation. Each object was then arranged\, photographed\, and enlarged to recontextualize these materials in ways that invite deeper reflections on how infrastructure and human agency blur notions of the natural and the artificial. \nArtist Statements/Bios\n\nSally Clegg \nSally Clegg is an artist and educator from Pelham\, Massachusetts. Her studio practice is rooted in sculpture and expanded printmaking\, stemming from a fascination with human efforts to make meaning from our relationships to objects. Clegg integrates history\, popular culture\, literature and philosophy as material for artmaking\, leveraging personal anecdote and humor to reveal the complexity\, absurdity\, and theoretical richness at play in our connections to things and to ourselves. \n\nClegg holds an MFA in Art from The University of Michigan Stamps School of Art & Design\, and a BA in Art & English from Goucher College. She has exhibited nationally and internationally\, and her work can be found in permanent collections at Yale University\, The New York Public Library\, and elsewhere. Her artwork and writing has appeared in ASAP/Journal\, BOMB Magazine\, Sculpture Magazine\, and Hyperallergic. She is a lecturer in Art & Design at the University of Michigan. Website / Instagram\n\n\nKim Karlsrud \nKim Karlsrud is the co-founder of Commonstudio\, a collaborative creative practice that develops socio-ecological and spatial interventions\, installations\, and initiatives working with and within urban landscapes. Her work explores the space between art and design\, and is grounded in the concept of the “commons\,” that which is shared\, as well as that which is ordinary\, banal\, and commonplace.\n\nKarlsrud completed her undergraduate degree in Product Design from Otis College of Art and Design and an MFA in Art from the University of Michigan. She is currently an Assistant Visiting Professor in the College of Design at the University of Oregon\, teaching across Art and Landscape Architecture departments. She jointly received the 2014-15 Prince Charitable Trust Rome Prize in Landscape Architecture\, was a 2017 resident at the Headlands Center for the Arts\, and is the 2025-26 Fuller Fieldscape Fellow. Website / Instagram
UID:138032-21903388@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/138032
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20250828T001529
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260611T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260611T190000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Fore-Site (Phase 3): The Stamps Gallery Pillar Project
DESCRIPTION:From September 2025 through August 2026\, Stamps Gallery is partnering in a curatorial collaboration with two Ypsilanti-based\, artist-run project spaces led by Stamps alumni: C.Y.N.K. Studios\, directed by Sally Clegg (Lecturer III and Student Exhibition Coordinator\, MFA ’20) and Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20)\; and Sometimes Space\, directed by Nathan Byrne (Lecturer I\, MFA ’21). Each space hosts dozens of artists annually for exhibitions\, performances\, and events\, fostering experimental work and building community. For this project\, Byrne\, Clegg\, and Narula have been commissioned to reimagine the pillars on Division Street that flank the gallery. In response\, they've curated six artists to create new work for the pillars over three cycles:\nPhase 1 (September 12 - December 12) artists: Amelia Burns (Cranbrook MFA '23) and Erin McKenna (MFA '20)Phase 2 (January 12 - April 12) artists: Sally Clegg (MFA '20) and Kim Karlsrud (MFA '20)Phase 3 (May 12 - August 12) artists: Abhishek Narula (MFA '20) and Nathan Byrne (MFA '21)\nPhase 3 \nCurated by Sometimes Space: Abhishek Narula (entry pillar)Curated by CYNK Studios: Nathan Byrne (courtyard pillar)
UID:138033-21881344@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/138033
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260608T121512
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260611T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260611T170000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Marianetta Porter: Breath\, Fragment\, Return
DESCRIPTION:\n\nCurated by Juana Williams\, this exhibition examines how Marianetta Porter uses everyday objects\, fragments\, and embodied memory to make absence an active\, living presence while challenging linear histories. Rooted in African American experience\, her practice treats what is discarded\, overlooked\, or missing not as loss\, but as a source of meaning that continues to act on the present. Through her process and materials\, Porter reveals how memory is carried in the body and embedded in ordinary things. Her work also resists forward-moving notions of time\, instead presenting a diasporic temporality in which past\, present\, and lived experience circulate together through repetition\, touch\, and recall. In doing so\, Porter proposes a vision of history as unfinished\, memory as active\, and absence as a force that sustains connection and shapes the present. \n\nMarianetta Porter is a visual artist and product designer whose research and creative practice are grounded in the study of African American history\, culture\, and representation. Through the language of visual art\, she draws connections between historic memory and contemporary African American life\, giving voice to the history of the African diaspora while acknowledging its central influence on the birth and flourishing of American culture.\n\nHer work has been exhibited nationally at institutions such as the Indianapolis Museum of Art\, the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry\, the Spoleto Festival\, the Harriet Tubman Museum\, and the Hampton University Museum of Art.\n\nShe earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts from Hampton University and her Master of Fine Arts from the University of Michigan. The recipient of numerous awards\, Porter is Professor Emeritus at the University of Michigan’s Stamps School of Art and Design.\n\nJuana Williams is a curator and writer whose work explores the intersections of cross-border intellectual history\, cultural memory\, and identity formation as expressed through modern and contemporary art from Africa and its diasporas.\n\nWilliams has held curatorial and academic appointments at organizations including the Detroit Institute of Arts\, Library Street Collective\, Wayne State University\, and the Urban Institute for Contemporary Art. Her curatorial projects have been presented at institutions across the United States and France\, including the Grand Rapids Art Museum\, the Muskegon Museum of Art\, Palais de Tokyo (Paris)\, and the Westmoreland Museum of American Art. In addition\, she has presented lectures at various museums and universities and contributed to numerous exhibition catalogs. Her work has been written about in publications such as Artsy\, Beaux Arts Magazine\, Condé Nast Traveller\, Michigan Chronicle\, and Observer. Williams holds a BA in Fine Art and an MA in Art History from Wayne State University.
UID:147625-21901375@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/147625
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260528T143201
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260611T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260611T180000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:You Next
DESCRIPTION:The University of Michigan Duderstadt Center Gallery presents “You Next”\, a duo exhibition by Thede Ambrose and Kate Donoghue\, curated by Nathan Byrne.\n\nOpening: Friday\, May 29th 6-9pm\nClosing: Sunday\, June 28th 2-5pm\n\nArtifacts\, Illusion\, and the Speculative mediate the exchange between Thede Ambrose and Kate Donoghue’s practices.\n\nReferencing both personal and found documentary and advertisement imagery\, Donoghue investigates the vacuous and hauntingly banal underbelly of commercial aspirations\, constructing paintings that collapse expectations of consumerism into innate and corrupted desires.\n\nAmbrose navigates mediated violence\, spirituality\, and the abject\, manifesting in perverse articulations of belief and reality. Imagistic sculpture and installation are generated through an expansive material interest\, and an extensive archive of found imagery.\n\n“You Next” presents the collisions of these practices. Cautionary tales\, dreams\, and fantasies of objectification come to a head in this collaboration between the two artists.\n\nGallery Hours: Tuesday - Friday\, Noon-6pm and Sunday Noon-6 pm
UID:148455-21904311@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/148455
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Duderstadt Center - Gallery 1019
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260421T085257
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260612T090000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260612T170000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Debbie Thompson Exhibition
DESCRIPTION:Debbie Thompson works predominantly in clay and draws inspiration from the natural world\, which she frequently references in her work. Her interest in ceramics began in high school when she took classes at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills\, Michigan. She later pursued her passion at the University of Michigan School of Art and Design\, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts. She also holds a Master of Arts from Eastern Michigan University and has completed post-graduate studio coursework at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago\, Maryland Institute College of Art\, Rhode Island School of Design\, and Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts.\n\nThompson taught visual art in the Ann Arbor Public Schools for 34 years and has also taught at the University of Michigan School of Education and Washtenaw Community College. She exhibits her work both locally and nationally and was a member of the Clay Gallery. She continues her practice in her home studio and at the Potters Guild in Ann Arbor\, Michigan. She is a member of the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts and the Michigan Ceramic Art Association. Her work is included in the permanent collection of the International Dinnerware Museum.\n\nThompson’s work has been inspired by the natural world since childhood. Although she initially studied biology in college\, she later shifted her focus to visual art. The textures\, colors\, and forms in her pieces are drawn directly from nature.\nSeeds—structures that have enabled plants to move through space and time for over 600 million years—are central to her recent work. They are vital to the continuation of plant life\, and therefore to human survival.\n\nIn this exhibition\, Thompson explores the unseen structures of seeds as revealed through electron microscopy. These images highlight the intricate beauty and ingenuity of nature\, which she interprets through her wall-mounted ceramic sculptures.\n\nAt a time when our planet and its ecosystems face increasing threats\, Thompson’s work serves as a reminder of the importance of preserving the natural world. Recognizing the beauty and significance of these often-unseen forms is a crucial first step toward protecting the life systems on which we all depend.
UID:147884-21902245@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/147884
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:North Campus Research Complex Building 18 - Connection Gallery
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260511T181505
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260612T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260612T190000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Fore-Site (Phase 2): The Stamps Gallery Pillar Project
DESCRIPTION:\n\nFrom September 2025 through November 2026\, Stamps Gallery is partnering in a curatorial collaboration with two Ypsilanti-based\, artist-run project spaces led by Stamps alumni: C.Y.N.K. Studios\, directed by Sally Clegg (Lecturer III and Student Exhibition Coordinator\, MFA ’20) and Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20)\; and Sometimes Space\, directed by Nathan Byrne (Lecturer I\, MFA ’21). Each space hosts dozens of artists annually for exhibitions\, performances\, and events\, fostering experimental work and building community. For this project\, Byrne\, Clegg\, and Narula have been commissioned to reimagine the pillars on Division Street that flank the gallery. In response\, they’ve curated six artists to create new work for the pillars over three cycles:\n\nPhase 1 (September 12 - December 12) artists: Amelia Burns (Cranbrook MFA ’23) and Erin McKenna (MFA ’20)\nPhase 2 (January 12 - August 12) artists: Sally Clegg (MFA ’20) and Kim Karlsrud (MFA ’20)\nPhase 3 (September 12 - November 12) artists: Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20) and Nathan Byrne (MFA ’21)\nPhase 2 Curatorial Statement\n\nCurated by Sometimes Space: Sally Clegg (entry pillar)\nCurated by CYNK Studios: Kim Karlsrud (courtyard pillar)\n\nArtists Sally Clegg and Kim Karlsrud wrap the Division Street pillars in highly site-specific ornament unearthed from the overlooked margins of Ann Arbor. On the Courtyard pillar\, Karlsrud scales up photographs of objects found in liminal spaces surrounding campus buildings on Green Road\, which the artist has encrusted in road salt. On the entryway pillar\, Clegg zooms in on tiny fragments of found material from UMich’s famous “rock” to celebrate nearly seven decades of student art and activism. Both artists uplift aggregate of local human activity to reveal tiny worlds of found form. \n\nSally Clegg: Sentimentary Rock\nSentimentary Rock is a composition of paint slag collected from the UMich rock monument at the corner of Washtenaw Avenue and Hill Street. This colorful composite material has been accumulating at the base of the iconic limestone boulder since the mid 1950’s\, when students began a tradition of painting it in acts of protest\, creativity\, and ritual\, sometimes multiple times per week. Akin to byproducts of industry such as “Fordite” (collectable chunks of automotive overspray sometimes called ‘Detroit agate’)\, Sentimentary Rock includes thousands of layers\, each dripped from a palimpsestic public proclamation. When processed\, sculpted\, sealed\, assembled\, and macro-photographed\, the result is this enlarged array of tiny gems\, intended to celebrate the indissoluble student voice. \n\nKim Karlsrud: What Amasses\nWhat Amasses is an assemblage of everyday found objects collected within the Miller Creek watershed\, an urbanized drainage system that encompasses much of the city of Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan campus. Selected objects were immersed in a road salt solution\, allowing delicate crystalline formations to emerge. Road salt is a common material input into these hydrological networks during the winter months and exists in multiple states of refinement\, expression\, coherence\, and fragmentation. Each object was then arranged\, photographed\, and enlarged to recontextualize these materials in ways that invite deeper reflections on how infrastructure and human agency blur notions of the natural and the artificial. \nArtist Statements/Bios\n\nSally Clegg \nSally Clegg is an artist and educator from Pelham\, Massachusetts. Her studio practice is rooted in sculpture and expanded printmaking\, stemming from a fascination with human efforts to make meaning from our relationships to objects. Clegg integrates history\, popular culture\, literature and philosophy as material for artmaking\, leveraging personal anecdote and humor to reveal the complexity\, absurdity\, and theoretical richness at play in our connections to things and to ourselves. \n\nClegg holds an MFA in Art from The University of Michigan Stamps School of Art & Design\, and a BA in Art & English from Goucher College. She has exhibited nationally and internationally\, and her work can be found in permanent collections at Yale University\, The New York Public Library\, and elsewhere. Her artwork and writing has appeared in ASAP/Journal\, BOMB Magazine\, Sculpture Magazine\, and Hyperallergic. She is a lecturer in Art & Design at the University of Michigan. Website / Instagram\n\n\nKim Karlsrud \nKim Karlsrud is the co-founder of Commonstudio\, a collaborative creative practice that develops socio-ecological and spatial interventions\, installations\, and initiatives working with and within urban landscapes. Her work explores the space between art and design\, and is grounded in the concept of the “commons\,” that which is shared\, as well as that which is ordinary\, banal\, and commonplace.\n\nKarlsrud completed her undergraduate degree in Product Design from Otis College of Art and Design and an MFA in Art from the University of Michigan. She is currently an Assistant Visiting Professor in the College of Design at the University of Oregon\, teaching across Art and Landscape Architecture departments. She jointly received the 2014-15 Prince Charitable Trust Rome Prize in Landscape Architecture\, was a 2017 resident at the Headlands Center for the Arts\, and is the 2025-26 Fuller Fieldscape Fellow. Website / Instagram
UID:138032-21903389@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/138032
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20250828T001529
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260612T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260612T190000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Fore-Site (Phase 3): The Stamps Gallery Pillar Project
DESCRIPTION:From September 2025 through August 2026\, Stamps Gallery is partnering in a curatorial collaboration with two Ypsilanti-based\, artist-run project spaces led by Stamps alumni: C.Y.N.K. Studios\, directed by Sally Clegg (Lecturer III and Student Exhibition Coordinator\, MFA ’20) and Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20)\; and Sometimes Space\, directed by Nathan Byrne (Lecturer I\, MFA ’21). Each space hosts dozens of artists annually for exhibitions\, performances\, and events\, fostering experimental work and building community. For this project\, Byrne\, Clegg\, and Narula have been commissioned to reimagine the pillars on Division Street that flank the gallery. In response\, they've curated six artists to create new work for the pillars over three cycles:\nPhase 1 (September 12 - December 12) artists: Amelia Burns (Cranbrook MFA '23) and Erin McKenna (MFA '20)Phase 2 (January 12 - April 12) artists: Sally Clegg (MFA '20) and Kim Karlsrud (MFA '20)Phase 3 (May 12 - August 12) artists: Abhishek Narula (MFA '20) and Nathan Byrne (MFA '21)\nPhase 3 \nCurated by Sometimes Space: Abhishek Narula (entry pillar)Curated by CYNK Studios: Nathan Byrne (courtyard pillar)
UID:138033-21881345@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/138033
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260608T121512
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260612T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260612T170000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Marianetta Porter: Breath\, Fragment\, Return
DESCRIPTION:\n\nCurated by Juana Williams\, this exhibition examines how Marianetta Porter uses everyday objects\, fragments\, and embodied memory to make absence an active\, living presence while challenging linear histories. Rooted in African American experience\, her practice treats what is discarded\, overlooked\, or missing not as loss\, but as a source of meaning that continues to act on the present. Through her process and materials\, Porter reveals how memory is carried in the body and embedded in ordinary things. Her work also resists forward-moving notions of time\, instead presenting a diasporic temporality in which past\, present\, and lived experience circulate together through repetition\, touch\, and recall. In doing so\, Porter proposes a vision of history as unfinished\, memory as active\, and absence as a force that sustains connection and shapes the present. \n\nMarianetta Porter is a visual artist and product designer whose research and creative practice are grounded in the study of African American history\, culture\, and representation. Through the language of visual art\, she draws connections between historic memory and contemporary African American life\, giving voice to the history of the African diaspora while acknowledging its central influence on the birth and flourishing of American culture.\n\nHer work has been exhibited nationally at institutions such as the Indianapolis Museum of Art\, the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry\, the Spoleto Festival\, the Harriet Tubman Museum\, and the Hampton University Museum of Art.\n\nShe earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts from Hampton University and her Master of Fine Arts from the University of Michigan. The recipient of numerous awards\, Porter is Professor Emeritus at the University of Michigan’s Stamps School of Art and Design.\n\nJuana Williams is a curator and writer whose work explores the intersections of cross-border intellectual history\, cultural memory\, and identity formation as expressed through modern and contemporary art from Africa and its diasporas.\n\nWilliams has held curatorial and academic appointments at organizations including the Detroit Institute of Arts\, Library Street Collective\, Wayne State University\, and the Urban Institute for Contemporary Art. Her curatorial projects have been presented at institutions across the United States and France\, including the Grand Rapids Art Museum\, the Muskegon Museum of Art\, Palais de Tokyo (Paris)\, and the Westmoreland Museum of American Art. In addition\, she has presented lectures at various museums and universities and contributed to numerous exhibition catalogs. Her work has been written about in publications such as Artsy\, Beaux Arts Magazine\, Condé Nast Traveller\, Michigan Chronicle\, and Observer. Williams holds a BA in Fine Art and an MA in Art History from Wayne State University.
UID:147625-21901376@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/147625
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260528T143201
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260612T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260612T180000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:You Next
DESCRIPTION:The University of Michigan Duderstadt Center Gallery presents “You Next”\, a duo exhibition by Thede Ambrose and Kate Donoghue\, curated by Nathan Byrne.\n\nOpening: Friday\, May 29th 6-9pm\nClosing: Sunday\, June 28th 2-5pm\n\nArtifacts\, Illusion\, and the Speculative mediate the exchange between Thede Ambrose and Kate Donoghue’s practices.\n\nReferencing both personal and found documentary and advertisement imagery\, Donoghue investigates the vacuous and hauntingly banal underbelly of commercial aspirations\, constructing paintings that collapse expectations of consumerism into innate and corrupted desires.\n\nAmbrose navigates mediated violence\, spirituality\, and the abject\, manifesting in perverse articulations of belief and reality. Imagistic sculpture and installation are generated through an expansive material interest\, and an extensive archive of found imagery.\n\n“You Next” presents the collisions of these practices. Cautionary tales\, dreams\, and fantasies of objectification come to a head in this collaboration between the two artists.\n\nGallery Hours: Tuesday - Friday\, Noon-6pm and Sunday Noon-6 pm
UID:148455-21904312@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/148455
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Duderstadt Center - Gallery 1019
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260518T121509
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260612T140000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260612T160000
SUMMARY:Workshop / Seminar:Summer Drop-in Artmaking
DESCRIPTION:\n\nStop by the gallery to participate in a hands-on printmaking activity inspired by the work in Marianetta Porter: Breath\, Fragment\, Return. Explore the exhibition more with interactive gallery guides.\n\nSummer Drop-in Artmaking events take place from 2-4 p.m. on the following Fridays in Summer 2026: June 12\, June 26\, July 10\, and July 24. Free and open to the public\, no experience necessary\, all supplies provided.\n\n
UID:148322-21903924@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/148322
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260511T181505
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260613T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260613T190000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Fore-Site (Phase 2): The Stamps Gallery Pillar Project
DESCRIPTION:\n\nFrom September 2025 through November 2026\, Stamps Gallery is partnering in a curatorial collaboration with two Ypsilanti-based\, artist-run project spaces led by Stamps alumni: C.Y.N.K. Studios\, directed by Sally Clegg (Lecturer III and Student Exhibition Coordinator\, MFA ’20) and Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20)\; and Sometimes Space\, directed by Nathan Byrne (Lecturer I\, MFA ’21). Each space hosts dozens of artists annually for exhibitions\, performances\, and events\, fostering experimental work and building community. For this project\, Byrne\, Clegg\, and Narula have been commissioned to reimagine the pillars on Division Street that flank the gallery. In response\, they’ve curated six artists to create new work for the pillars over three cycles:\n\nPhase 1 (September 12 - December 12) artists: Amelia Burns (Cranbrook MFA ’23) and Erin McKenna (MFA ’20)\nPhase 2 (January 12 - August 12) artists: Sally Clegg (MFA ’20) and Kim Karlsrud (MFA ’20)\nPhase 3 (September 12 - November 12) artists: Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20) and Nathan Byrne (MFA ’21)\nPhase 2 Curatorial Statement\n\nCurated by Sometimes Space: Sally Clegg (entry pillar)\nCurated by CYNK Studios: Kim Karlsrud (courtyard pillar)\n\nArtists Sally Clegg and Kim Karlsrud wrap the Division Street pillars in highly site-specific ornament unearthed from the overlooked margins of Ann Arbor. On the Courtyard pillar\, Karlsrud scales up photographs of objects found in liminal spaces surrounding campus buildings on Green Road\, which the artist has encrusted in road salt. On the entryway pillar\, Clegg zooms in on tiny fragments of found material from UMich’s famous “rock” to celebrate nearly seven decades of student art and activism. Both artists uplift aggregate of local human activity to reveal tiny worlds of found form. \n\nSally Clegg: Sentimentary Rock\nSentimentary Rock is a composition of paint slag collected from the UMich rock monument at the corner of Washtenaw Avenue and Hill Street. This colorful composite material has been accumulating at the base of the iconic limestone boulder since the mid 1950’s\, when students began a tradition of painting it in acts of protest\, creativity\, and ritual\, sometimes multiple times per week. Akin to byproducts of industry such as “Fordite” (collectable chunks of automotive overspray sometimes called ‘Detroit agate’)\, Sentimentary Rock includes thousands of layers\, each dripped from a palimpsestic public proclamation. When processed\, sculpted\, sealed\, assembled\, and macro-photographed\, the result is this enlarged array of tiny gems\, intended to celebrate the indissoluble student voice. \n\nKim Karlsrud: What Amasses\nWhat Amasses is an assemblage of everyday found objects collected within the Miller Creek watershed\, an urbanized drainage system that encompasses much of the city of Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan campus. Selected objects were immersed in a road salt solution\, allowing delicate crystalline formations to emerge. Road salt is a common material input into these hydrological networks during the winter months and exists in multiple states of refinement\, expression\, coherence\, and fragmentation. Each object was then arranged\, photographed\, and enlarged to recontextualize these materials in ways that invite deeper reflections on how infrastructure and human agency blur notions of the natural and the artificial. \nArtist Statements/Bios\n\nSally Clegg \nSally Clegg is an artist and educator from Pelham\, Massachusetts. Her studio practice is rooted in sculpture and expanded printmaking\, stemming from a fascination with human efforts to make meaning from our relationships to objects. Clegg integrates history\, popular culture\, literature and philosophy as material for artmaking\, leveraging personal anecdote and humor to reveal the complexity\, absurdity\, and theoretical richness at play in our connections to things and to ourselves. \n\nClegg holds an MFA in Art from The University of Michigan Stamps School of Art & Design\, and a BA in Art & English from Goucher College. She has exhibited nationally and internationally\, and her work can be found in permanent collections at Yale University\, The New York Public Library\, and elsewhere. Her artwork and writing has appeared in ASAP/Journal\, BOMB Magazine\, Sculpture Magazine\, and Hyperallergic. She is a lecturer in Art & Design at the University of Michigan. Website / Instagram\n\n\nKim Karlsrud \nKim Karlsrud is the co-founder of Commonstudio\, a collaborative creative practice that develops socio-ecological and spatial interventions\, installations\, and initiatives working with and within urban landscapes. Her work explores the space between art and design\, and is grounded in the concept of the “commons\,” that which is shared\, as well as that which is ordinary\, banal\, and commonplace.\n\nKarlsrud completed her undergraduate degree in Product Design from Otis College of Art and Design and an MFA in Art from the University of Michigan. She is currently an Assistant Visiting Professor in the College of Design at the University of Oregon\, teaching across Art and Landscape Architecture departments. She jointly received the 2014-15 Prince Charitable Trust Rome Prize in Landscape Architecture\, was a 2017 resident at the Headlands Center for the Arts\, and is the 2025-26 Fuller Fieldscape Fellow. Website / Instagram
UID:138032-21903390@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/138032
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20250828T001529
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260613T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260613T190000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Fore-Site (Phase 3): The Stamps Gallery Pillar Project
DESCRIPTION:From September 2025 through August 2026\, Stamps Gallery is partnering in a curatorial collaboration with two Ypsilanti-based\, artist-run project spaces led by Stamps alumni: C.Y.N.K. Studios\, directed by Sally Clegg (Lecturer III and Student Exhibition Coordinator\, MFA ’20) and Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20)\; and Sometimes Space\, directed by Nathan Byrne (Lecturer I\, MFA ’21). Each space hosts dozens of artists annually for exhibitions\, performances\, and events\, fostering experimental work and building community. For this project\, Byrne\, Clegg\, and Narula have been commissioned to reimagine the pillars on Division Street that flank the gallery. In response\, they've curated six artists to create new work for the pillars over three cycles:\nPhase 1 (September 12 - December 12) artists: Amelia Burns (Cranbrook MFA '23) and Erin McKenna (MFA '20)Phase 2 (January 12 - April 12) artists: Sally Clegg (MFA '20) and Kim Karlsrud (MFA '20)Phase 3 (May 12 - August 12) artists: Abhishek Narula (MFA '20) and Nathan Byrne (MFA '21)\nPhase 3 \nCurated by Sometimes Space: Abhishek Narula (entry pillar)Curated by CYNK Studios: Nathan Byrne (courtyard pillar)
UID:138033-21881346@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/138033
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260608T121512
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260613T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260613T170000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Marianetta Porter: Breath\, Fragment\, Return
DESCRIPTION:\n\nCurated by Juana Williams\, this exhibition examines how Marianetta Porter uses everyday objects\, fragments\, and embodied memory to make absence an active\, living presence while challenging linear histories. Rooted in African American experience\, her practice treats what is discarded\, overlooked\, or missing not as loss\, but as a source of meaning that continues to act on the present. Through her process and materials\, Porter reveals how memory is carried in the body and embedded in ordinary things. Her work also resists forward-moving notions of time\, instead presenting a diasporic temporality in which past\, present\, and lived experience circulate together through repetition\, touch\, and recall. In doing so\, Porter proposes a vision of history as unfinished\, memory as active\, and absence as a force that sustains connection and shapes the present. \n\nMarianetta Porter is a visual artist and product designer whose research and creative practice are grounded in the study of African American history\, culture\, and representation. Through the language of visual art\, she draws connections between historic memory and contemporary African American life\, giving voice to the history of the African diaspora while acknowledging its central influence on the birth and flourishing of American culture.\n\nHer work has been exhibited nationally at institutions such as the Indianapolis Museum of Art\, the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry\, the Spoleto Festival\, the Harriet Tubman Museum\, and the Hampton University Museum of Art.\n\nShe earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts from Hampton University and her Master of Fine Arts from the University of Michigan. The recipient of numerous awards\, Porter is Professor Emeritus at the University of Michigan’s Stamps School of Art and Design.\n\nJuana Williams is a curator and writer whose work explores the intersections of cross-border intellectual history\, cultural memory\, and identity formation as expressed through modern and contemporary art from Africa and its diasporas.\n\nWilliams has held curatorial and academic appointments at organizations including the Detroit Institute of Arts\, Library Street Collective\, Wayne State University\, and the Urban Institute for Contemporary Art. Her curatorial projects have been presented at institutions across the United States and France\, including the Grand Rapids Art Museum\, the Muskegon Museum of Art\, Palais de Tokyo (Paris)\, and the Westmoreland Museum of American Art. In addition\, she has presented lectures at various museums and universities and contributed to numerous exhibition catalogs. Her work has been written about in publications such as Artsy\, Beaux Arts Magazine\, Condé Nast Traveller\, Michigan Chronicle\, and Observer. Williams holds a BA in Fine Art and an MA in Art History from Wayne State University.
UID:147625-21901377@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/147625
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260527T113314
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260613T140000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260613T160000
SUMMARY:Social / Informal Gathering:Student Art Meetup: Ann Arbor Comic Arts Festival
DESCRIPTION:Are you looking to explore the arts in Ann Arbor with a small group? Join us for the Ann Arbor Comic Arts Festival at the Ann Arbor District Library! This event is a celebration of comics with workshops\, art activities\, and one-on-one encounters between comic readers and comic makers.\n\nWe will meet right outside the Sweetwaters in the Michigan Union at 2 PM\, and walk together for 10 minutes to the Ann Arbor District Library in downtown Ann Arbor.\n\nCo-presented by the Arts Initiative and the International Center.
UID:148428-21904250@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/148428
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260528T143201
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260614T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260614T180000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:You Next
DESCRIPTION:The University of Michigan Duderstadt Center Gallery presents “You Next”\, a duo exhibition by Thede Ambrose and Kate Donoghue\, curated by Nathan Byrne.\n\nOpening: Friday\, May 29th 6-9pm\nClosing: Sunday\, June 28th 2-5pm\n\nArtifacts\, Illusion\, and the Speculative mediate the exchange between Thede Ambrose and Kate Donoghue’s practices.\n\nReferencing both personal and found documentary and advertisement imagery\, Donoghue investigates the vacuous and hauntingly banal underbelly of commercial aspirations\, constructing paintings that collapse expectations of consumerism into innate and corrupted desires.\n\nAmbrose navigates mediated violence\, spirituality\, and the abject\, manifesting in perverse articulations of belief and reality. Imagistic sculpture and installation are generated through an expansive material interest\, and an extensive archive of found imagery.\n\n“You Next” presents the collisions of these practices. Cautionary tales\, dreams\, and fantasies of objectification come to a head in this collaboration between the two artists.\n\nGallery Hours: Tuesday - Friday\, Noon-6pm and Sunday Noon-6 pm
UID:148455-21904314@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/148455
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Duderstadt Center - Gallery 1019
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260421T085257
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260615T090000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260615T170000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Debbie Thompson Exhibition
DESCRIPTION:Debbie Thompson works predominantly in clay and draws inspiration from the natural world\, which she frequently references in her work. Her interest in ceramics began in high school when she took classes at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills\, Michigan. She later pursued her passion at the University of Michigan School of Art and Design\, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts. She also holds a Master of Arts from Eastern Michigan University and has completed post-graduate studio coursework at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago\, Maryland Institute College of Art\, Rhode Island School of Design\, and Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts.\n\nThompson taught visual art in the Ann Arbor Public Schools for 34 years and has also taught at the University of Michigan School of Education and Washtenaw Community College. She exhibits her work both locally and nationally and was a member of the Clay Gallery. She continues her practice in her home studio and at the Potters Guild in Ann Arbor\, Michigan. She is a member of the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts and the Michigan Ceramic Art Association. Her work is included in the permanent collection of the International Dinnerware Museum.\n\nThompson’s work has been inspired by the natural world since childhood. Although she initially studied biology in college\, she later shifted her focus to visual art. The textures\, colors\, and forms in her pieces are drawn directly from nature.\nSeeds—structures that have enabled plants to move through space and time for over 600 million years—are central to her recent work. They are vital to the continuation of plant life\, and therefore to human survival.\n\nIn this exhibition\, Thompson explores the unseen structures of seeds as revealed through electron microscopy. These images highlight the intricate beauty and ingenuity of nature\, which she interprets through her wall-mounted ceramic sculptures.\n\nAt a time when our planet and its ecosystems face increasing threats\, Thompson’s work serves as a reminder of the importance of preserving the natural world. Recognizing the beauty and significance of these often-unseen forms is a crucial first step toward protecting the life systems on which we all depend.
UID:147884-21902248@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/147884
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:North Campus Research Complex Building 18 - Connection Gallery
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260518T103711
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260615T140000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260615T153000
SUMMARY:Other:Ann Arbor Japan Week 2026 | Clay Totoro & Friends Craft
DESCRIPTION:Celebrate Studio Ghibli with this fun craft at the AADL Downtown Library! Use air-dry clay to create characters from iconic films like My Neighbor Totoro\, Kiki's Delivery Service\, and Howl's Moving Castle. Follow along as we provide easy step-by-step instructions.\n   \n   This event is part of Ann Arbor Japan Week 2026 in partnership with the Ann Arbor District Library: https://aadl.org/node/668409\n   \n   The 12th annual Ann Arbor Japan Week is from June 14 to 20. Join us for an exciting week of free\, Japan-themed events and activities for all ages! View the complete schedule at: https://myumi.ch/V7nxn.\n\n*Accommodation: If there is anything we can do to make this event accessible to you\, please contact us at cjsevents@umich.edu. Please be aware that advance notice is necessary as some accommodations may require more time for the university to arrange.*
UID:148070-21902910@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/148070
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location - 4th Floor Program Room
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260529T181516
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260615T150000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260615T160000
SUMMARY:Other:Transfer Student Info Session
DESCRIPTION:\n\nJoin us for an hour long virtual info session for students interested in transferring to the University of Michigan Stamps School of Art & Design from another school or college. The info session will include a presentation and Q&A with current students and the admissions team.\n\nInfo session times are Eastern US.\n\nVisit our Admissions Events page to learn more about additional upcoming events.
UID:143358-21892946@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/143358
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260518T103743
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260615T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260615T190000
SUMMARY:Performance:Ann Arbor Japan Week 2026 | Sakura Instrumental Group and Kyoko Fujii Calligraphy Performance
DESCRIPTION:Immerse yourself in the vibrant cultural tapestry of Japan with the Sakura “Cherry Blossom” Japanese Instrumental Group. Experience the enchanting world of the Shishimai Lion dance\, a traditional folk art passed down through generations\, which brings the magic of Japanese folklore to life. The presentation will also feature Shodō calligraphy artist Kyoko Fujii\, who will create traditional Japanese calligraphy using an extraordinarily large-sized washi paper and brush\, accompanied by traditional festival music. Please enjoy this powerful and dynamic collaboration\, concluding with a celebratory summer Bon Dance. Simple moves will be demonstrated\, which can be performed sitting or standing\, to the festive beats of our drums.\n   \n   This event is part of Ann Arbor Japan Week 2026\, held in partnership with the Ann Arbor District Library: https://aadl.org/node/669361\n   \n   The 12th annual Ann Arbor Japan Week is from June 14 to 20. Join us for an exciting week of free\, Japan-themed events and activities for all ages! View the complete schedule at: https://myumi.ch/V7nxn.\n\n*Accommodation: If there is anything we can do to make this event accessible to you\, please contact us at cjsevents@umich.edu. Please be aware that advance notice is necessary as some accommodations may require more time for the university to arrange.*
UID:148081-21902927@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/148081
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location - 1st Floor Lobby
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260608T163250
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260615T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260615T213000
SUMMARY:Social / Informal Gathering:UMS Summer Sings
DESCRIPTION:The UMS Choral Union invites you to take part in the return of Summer Sings. Just come as you are to this no-audition\, no-performance evening of memorable music-making!\n\nAs many as 250 singers from southeastern Michigan\, northern Ohio\, and Canada have joined each session in singing through great choral repertoire with some of the nation’s most respected choral conductors and outstanding soloists. We rehearse portions of the score during the first half\, break for refreshments\, and then re-convene to sing through the entire work. This Summer Sings will feature the opportunity to join community members in singing Part 1 of Mendelssohn's \"Elijah\,\" in English. \n\nSummer Sings costs $5.00 paid at the door (cash only). Please arrive early at 6:30 pm for registration. \n\nPlease note: Due to construction around Hill Auditorium and the closure of E Washington St for the Ann Arbor Summer Festival\, we are unable to load in bleachers for the Hill stage as there is not enough room for a semi-truck to deliver them. As a result\, this year’s Hill Auditorium Summer Sings will have the singers seated in the audience instead of on the Hill Auditorium stage.
UID:148088-21902935@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/148088
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Hill Auditorium
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260421T085257
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260616T090000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260616T170000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Debbie Thompson Exhibition
DESCRIPTION:Debbie Thompson works predominantly in clay and draws inspiration from the natural world\, which she frequently references in her work. Her interest in ceramics began in high school when she took classes at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills\, Michigan. She later pursued her passion at the University of Michigan School of Art and Design\, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts. She also holds a Master of Arts from Eastern Michigan University and has completed post-graduate studio coursework at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago\, Maryland Institute College of Art\, Rhode Island School of Design\, and Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts.\n\nThompson taught visual art in the Ann Arbor Public Schools for 34 years and has also taught at the University of Michigan School of Education and Washtenaw Community College. She exhibits her work both locally and nationally and was a member of the Clay Gallery. She continues her practice in her home studio and at the Potters Guild in Ann Arbor\, Michigan. She is a member of the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts and the Michigan Ceramic Art Association. Her work is included in the permanent collection of the International Dinnerware Museum.\n\nThompson’s work has been inspired by the natural world since childhood. Although she initially studied biology in college\, she later shifted her focus to visual art. The textures\, colors\, and forms in her pieces are drawn directly from nature.\nSeeds—structures that have enabled plants to move through space and time for over 600 million years—are central to her recent work. They are vital to the continuation of plant life\, and therefore to human survival.\n\nIn this exhibition\, Thompson explores the unseen structures of seeds as revealed through electron microscopy. These images highlight the intricate beauty and ingenuity of nature\, which she interprets through her wall-mounted ceramic sculptures.\n\nAt a time when our planet and its ecosystems face increasing threats\, Thompson’s work serves as a reminder of the importance of preserving the natural world. Recognizing the beauty and significance of these often-unseen forms is a crucial first step toward protecting the life systems on which we all depend.
UID:147884-21902249@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/147884
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:North Campus Research Complex Building 18 - Connection Gallery
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260528T143201
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260616T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260616T180000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:You Next
DESCRIPTION:The University of Michigan Duderstadt Center Gallery presents “You Next”\, a duo exhibition by Thede Ambrose and Kate Donoghue\, curated by Nathan Byrne.\n\nOpening: Friday\, May 29th 6-9pm\nClosing: Sunday\, June 28th 2-5pm\n\nArtifacts\, Illusion\, and the Speculative mediate the exchange between Thede Ambrose and Kate Donoghue’s practices.\n\nReferencing both personal and found documentary and advertisement imagery\, Donoghue investigates the vacuous and hauntingly banal underbelly of commercial aspirations\, constructing paintings that collapse expectations of consumerism into innate and corrupted desires.\n\nAmbrose navigates mediated violence\, spirituality\, and the abject\, manifesting in perverse articulations of belief and reality. Imagistic sculpture and installation are generated through an expansive material interest\, and an extensive archive of found imagery.\n\n“You Next” presents the collisions of these practices. Cautionary tales\, dreams\, and fantasies of objectification come to a head in this collaboration between the two artists.\n\nGallery Hours: Tuesday - Friday\, Noon-6pm and Sunday Noon-6 pm
UID:148455-21904316@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/148455
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Duderstadt Center - Gallery 1019
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260518T104054
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260616T140000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260616T153000
SUMMARY:Workshop / Seminar:Ann Arbor Japan Week 2026 | Make a Print Inspired by Japanese Art with UMMA
DESCRIPTION:Make a print inspired by Japanese artwork from the University of Michigan Museum of Art’s (UMMA) collection. You’ll learn about printmaking processes\, trace reproductions from the museum\, and add personal touches in this workshop led by educators from UMMA. Bring your imagination!\n   \n   Please note that this workshop is held in the Secret Lab at Ann Arbor District Library Downtown. After you make your own artwork\, take it with you to the U-M Museum of Art (525 S. State Street). Visit the original inspiration in person and claim your Summer Game code! Learn more about the Summer Game at the Ann Arbor District Library website.\n   \n   This event is part of Ann Arbor Japan Week 2026\, held in partnership with the Ann Arbor District Library (https://aadl.org/node/668778) and the University of Michigan Museum of Art (https://umma.umich.edu/).\n   \n   The 12th annual Ann Arbor Japan Week is from June 14 to 20. Join us for an exciting week of free\, Japan-themed events and activities for all ages! View the complete schedule at: https://myumi.ch/V7nxn.\n\n*Accommodation: If there is anything we can do to make this event accessible to you\, please contact us at cjsevents@umich.edu. Please be aware that advance notice is necessary as some accommodations may require more time for the university to arrange.*
UID:148082-21902928@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/148082
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location - Secret Lab
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260518T104113
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260616T170000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260616T200000
SUMMARY:Workshop / Seminar:Ann Arbor Japan Week 2026 | Make Your Own Summer Origami and Japanese Bean Bags
DESCRIPTION:Fold\, toss\, and take it home! Stop by the KidZone at the Ann Arbor Summer Festival to make summer-themed Japanese origami and Japanese-style bean bags. It’s a wonderful way to discover the artistry and playfulness of Japanese crafts\, and every little maker leaves with something handmade and uniquely theirs. No experience is needed\, just bring your curiosity and a little summer spirit!\n   \n   This event is part of Ann Arbor Japan Week 2026\, held in partnership with the Ann Arbor Summer Festival https://www.a2sf.org/events/japanese-week-japanese-crafts/.\n   \n   The 12th annual Ann Arbor Japan Week is from June 14 to 20. Join us for an exciting week of free\, Japan-themed events and activities for all ages! View the complete schedule at: https://myumi.ch/V7nxn.\n\n*This event is co-sponsored by the Rudolf Steiner School of Ann Arbor and Ann Arbor Summer Fest*\n\n*Accommodation: If there is anything we can do to make this event accessible to you\, please contact us at cjsevents@umich.edu. Please be aware that advance notice is necessary as some accommodations may require more time for the university to arrange.*
UID:148083-21902929@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/148083
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location - KidZone
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260421T085257
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260617T090000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260617T170000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Debbie Thompson Exhibition
DESCRIPTION:Debbie Thompson works predominantly in clay and draws inspiration from the natural world\, which she frequently references in her work. Her interest in ceramics began in high school when she took classes at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills\, Michigan. She later pursued her passion at the University of Michigan School of Art and Design\, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts. She also holds a Master of Arts from Eastern Michigan University and has completed post-graduate studio coursework at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago\, Maryland Institute College of Art\, Rhode Island School of Design\, and Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts.\n\nThompson taught visual art in the Ann Arbor Public Schools for 34 years and has also taught at the University of Michigan School of Education and Washtenaw Community College. She exhibits her work both locally and nationally and was a member of the Clay Gallery. She continues her practice in her home studio and at the Potters Guild in Ann Arbor\, Michigan. She is a member of the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts and the Michigan Ceramic Art Association. Her work is included in the permanent collection of the International Dinnerware Museum.\n\nThompson’s work has been inspired by the natural world since childhood. Although she initially studied biology in college\, she later shifted her focus to visual art. The textures\, colors\, and forms in her pieces are drawn directly from nature.\nSeeds—structures that have enabled plants to move through space and time for over 600 million years—are central to her recent work. They are vital to the continuation of plant life\, and therefore to human survival.\n\nIn this exhibition\, Thompson explores the unseen structures of seeds as revealed through electron microscopy. These images highlight the intricate beauty and ingenuity of nature\, which she interprets through her wall-mounted ceramic sculptures.\n\nAt a time when our planet and its ecosystems face increasing threats\, Thompson’s work serves as a reminder of the importance of preserving the natural world. Recognizing the beauty and significance of these often-unseen forms is a crucial first step toward protecting the life systems on which we all depend.
UID:147884-21902250@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/147884
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:North Campus Research Complex Building 18 - Connection Gallery
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260511T181505
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260617T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260617T190000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Fore-Site (Phase 2): The Stamps Gallery Pillar Project
DESCRIPTION:\n\nFrom September 2025 through November 2026\, Stamps Gallery is partnering in a curatorial collaboration with two Ypsilanti-based\, artist-run project spaces led by Stamps alumni: C.Y.N.K. Studios\, directed by Sally Clegg (Lecturer III and Student Exhibition Coordinator\, MFA ’20) and Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20)\; and Sometimes Space\, directed by Nathan Byrne (Lecturer I\, MFA ’21). Each space hosts dozens of artists annually for exhibitions\, performances\, and events\, fostering experimental work and building community. For this project\, Byrne\, Clegg\, and Narula have been commissioned to reimagine the pillars on Division Street that flank the gallery. In response\, they’ve curated six artists to create new work for the pillars over three cycles:\n\nPhase 1 (September 12 - December 12) artists: Amelia Burns (Cranbrook MFA ’23) and Erin McKenna (MFA ’20)\nPhase 2 (January 12 - August 12) artists: Sally Clegg (MFA ’20) and Kim Karlsrud (MFA ’20)\nPhase 3 (September 12 - November 12) artists: Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20) and Nathan Byrne (MFA ’21)\nPhase 2 Curatorial Statement\n\nCurated by Sometimes Space: Sally Clegg (entry pillar)\nCurated by CYNK Studios: Kim Karlsrud (courtyard pillar)\n\nArtists Sally Clegg and Kim Karlsrud wrap the Division Street pillars in highly site-specific ornament unearthed from the overlooked margins of Ann Arbor. On the Courtyard pillar\, Karlsrud scales up photographs of objects found in liminal spaces surrounding campus buildings on Green Road\, which the artist has encrusted in road salt. On the entryway pillar\, Clegg zooms in on tiny fragments of found material from UMich’s famous “rock” to celebrate nearly seven decades of student art and activism. Both artists uplift aggregate of local human activity to reveal tiny worlds of found form. \n\nSally Clegg: Sentimentary Rock\nSentimentary Rock is a composition of paint slag collected from the UMich rock monument at the corner of Washtenaw Avenue and Hill Street. This colorful composite material has been accumulating at the base of the iconic limestone boulder since the mid 1950’s\, when students began a tradition of painting it in acts of protest\, creativity\, and ritual\, sometimes multiple times per week. Akin to byproducts of industry such as “Fordite” (collectable chunks of automotive overspray sometimes called ‘Detroit agate’)\, Sentimentary Rock includes thousands of layers\, each dripped from a palimpsestic public proclamation. When processed\, sculpted\, sealed\, assembled\, and macro-photographed\, the result is this enlarged array of tiny gems\, intended to celebrate the indissoluble student voice. \n\nKim Karlsrud: What Amasses\nWhat Amasses is an assemblage of everyday found objects collected within the Miller Creek watershed\, an urbanized drainage system that encompasses much of the city of Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan campus. Selected objects were immersed in a road salt solution\, allowing delicate crystalline formations to emerge. Road salt is a common material input into these hydrological networks during the winter months and exists in multiple states of refinement\, expression\, coherence\, and fragmentation. Each object was then arranged\, photographed\, and enlarged to recontextualize these materials in ways that invite deeper reflections on how infrastructure and human agency blur notions of the natural and the artificial. \nArtist Statements/Bios\n\nSally Clegg \nSally Clegg is an artist and educator from Pelham\, Massachusetts. Her studio practice is rooted in sculpture and expanded printmaking\, stemming from a fascination with human efforts to make meaning from our relationships to objects. Clegg integrates history\, popular culture\, literature and philosophy as material for artmaking\, leveraging personal anecdote and humor to reveal the complexity\, absurdity\, and theoretical richness at play in our connections to things and to ourselves. \n\nClegg holds an MFA in Art from The University of Michigan Stamps School of Art & Design\, and a BA in Art & English from Goucher College. She has exhibited nationally and internationally\, and her work can be found in permanent collections at Yale University\, The New York Public Library\, and elsewhere. Her artwork and writing has appeared in ASAP/Journal\, BOMB Magazine\, Sculpture Magazine\, and Hyperallergic. She is a lecturer in Art & Design at the University of Michigan. Website / Instagram\n\n\nKim Karlsrud \nKim Karlsrud is the co-founder of Commonstudio\, a collaborative creative practice that develops socio-ecological and spatial interventions\, installations\, and initiatives working with and within urban landscapes. Her work explores the space between art and design\, and is grounded in the concept of the “commons\,” that which is shared\, as well as that which is ordinary\, banal\, and commonplace.\n\nKarlsrud completed her undergraduate degree in Product Design from Otis College of Art and Design and an MFA in Art from the University of Michigan. She is currently an Assistant Visiting Professor in the College of Design at the University of Oregon\, teaching across Art and Landscape Architecture departments. She jointly received the 2014-15 Prince Charitable Trust Rome Prize in Landscape Architecture\, was a 2017 resident at the Headlands Center for the Arts\, and is the 2025-26 Fuller Fieldscape Fellow. Website / Instagram
UID:138032-21903391@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/138032
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20250828T001529
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260617T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260617T190000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Fore-Site (Phase 3): The Stamps Gallery Pillar Project
DESCRIPTION:From September 2025 through August 2026\, Stamps Gallery is partnering in a curatorial collaboration with two Ypsilanti-based\, artist-run project spaces led by Stamps alumni: C.Y.N.K. Studios\, directed by Sally Clegg (Lecturer III and Student Exhibition Coordinator\, MFA ’20) and Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20)\; and Sometimes Space\, directed by Nathan Byrne (Lecturer I\, MFA ’21). Each space hosts dozens of artists annually for exhibitions\, performances\, and events\, fostering experimental work and building community. For this project\, Byrne\, Clegg\, and Narula have been commissioned to reimagine the pillars on Division Street that flank the gallery. In response\, they've curated six artists to create new work for the pillars over three cycles:\nPhase 1 (September 12 - December 12) artists: Amelia Burns (Cranbrook MFA '23) and Erin McKenna (MFA '20)Phase 2 (January 12 - April 12) artists: Sally Clegg (MFA '20) and Kim Karlsrud (MFA '20)Phase 3 (May 12 - August 12) artists: Abhishek Narula (MFA '20) and Nathan Byrne (MFA '21)\nPhase 3 \nCurated by Sometimes Space: Abhishek Narula (entry pillar)Curated by CYNK Studios: Nathan Byrne (courtyard pillar)
UID:138033-21881347@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/138033
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260608T121512
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260617T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260617T170000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Marianetta Porter: Breath\, Fragment\, Return
DESCRIPTION:\n\nCurated by Juana Williams\, this exhibition examines how Marianetta Porter uses everyday objects\, fragments\, and embodied memory to make absence an active\, living presence while challenging linear histories. Rooted in African American experience\, her practice treats what is discarded\, overlooked\, or missing not as loss\, but as a source of meaning that continues to act on the present. Through her process and materials\, Porter reveals how memory is carried in the body and embedded in ordinary things. Her work also resists forward-moving notions of time\, instead presenting a diasporic temporality in which past\, present\, and lived experience circulate together through repetition\, touch\, and recall. In doing so\, Porter proposes a vision of history as unfinished\, memory as active\, and absence as a force that sustains connection and shapes the present. \n\nMarianetta Porter is a visual artist and product designer whose research and creative practice are grounded in the study of African American history\, culture\, and representation. Through the language of visual art\, she draws connections between historic memory and contemporary African American life\, giving voice to the history of the African diaspora while acknowledging its central influence on the birth and flourishing of American culture.\n\nHer work has been exhibited nationally at institutions such as the Indianapolis Museum of Art\, the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry\, the Spoleto Festival\, the Harriet Tubman Museum\, and the Hampton University Museum of Art.\n\nShe earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts from Hampton University and her Master of Fine Arts from the University of Michigan. The recipient of numerous awards\, Porter is Professor Emeritus at the University of Michigan’s Stamps School of Art and Design.\n\nJuana Williams is a curator and writer whose work explores the intersections of cross-border intellectual history\, cultural memory\, and identity formation as expressed through modern and contemporary art from Africa and its diasporas.\n\nWilliams has held curatorial and academic appointments at organizations including the Detroit Institute of Arts\, Library Street Collective\, Wayne State University\, and the Urban Institute for Contemporary Art. Her curatorial projects have been presented at institutions across the United States and France\, including the Grand Rapids Art Museum\, the Muskegon Museum of Art\, Palais de Tokyo (Paris)\, and the Westmoreland Museum of American Art. In addition\, she has presented lectures at various museums and universities and contributed to numerous exhibition catalogs. Her work has been written about in publications such as Artsy\, Beaux Arts Magazine\, Condé Nast Traveller\, Michigan Chronicle\, and Observer. Williams holds a BA in Fine Art and an MA in Art History from Wayne State University.
UID:147625-21901378@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/147625
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260528T143201
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260617T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260617T180000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:You Next
DESCRIPTION:The University of Michigan Duderstadt Center Gallery presents “You Next”\, a duo exhibition by Thede Ambrose and Kate Donoghue\, curated by Nathan Byrne.\n\nOpening: Friday\, May 29th 6-9pm\nClosing: Sunday\, June 28th 2-5pm\n\nArtifacts\, Illusion\, and the Speculative mediate the exchange between Thede Ambrose and Kate Donoghue’s practices.\n\nReferencing both personal and found documentary and advertisement imagery\, Donoghue investigates the vacuous and hauntingly banal underbelly of commercial aspirations\, constructing paintings that collapse expectations of consumerism into innate and corrupted desires.\n\nAmbrose navigates mediated violence\, spirituality\, and the abject\, manifesting in perverse articulations of belief and reality. Imagistic sculpture and installation are generated through an expansive material interest\, and an extensive archive of found imagery.\n\n“You Next” presents the collisions of these practices. Cautionary tales\, dreams\, and fantasies of objectification come to a head in this collaboration between the two artists.\n\nGallery Hours: Tuesday - Friday\, Noon-6pm and Sunday Noon-6 pm
UID:148455-21904317@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/148455
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Duderstadt Center - Gallery 1019
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260518T105911
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260617T170000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260617T190000
SUMMARY:Workshop / Seminar:Ann Arbor Japan Week 2026 | Letterpress Lab: Japanese Family Crests
DESCRIPTION:Jillian Locke from the U-M Center for Japanese Studies will present a short talk on the history of traditional Japanese family crests and share information about this selection of crest plates in the Ann Arbor District Library's letterpress collection.\n   \n   Letterpress is the traditional process of printing by hand using movable type. This lab will feature a short guided activity to get familiar with assembling and printing a letterpress project. Participants will be able to use wood type\, handset lead type\, and ornaments\, as well as learn how to hand ink and print on a Vandercook cylinder press. If you'd like\, you can stay longer to work on a more involved project.\n   \n   Due to the presence of lead-based type\, this program is intended for adults.\n   \n   New to letterpress? Please arrive at the start of the program for a 20-minute demonstration of how to use the equipment.\n   \n   This event is part of Ann Arbor Japan Week 2026\, held in partnership with the Ann Arbor District Library: https://aadl.org/node/666415\n   \n   The 12th annual Ann Arbor Japan Week is from June 14 to 20. Join us for an exciting week of free\, Japan-themed events and activities for all ages! View the complete schedule at: https://myumi.ch/V7nxn.\n\n*Accommodation: If there is anything we can do to make this event accessible to you\, please contact us at cjsevents@umich.edu. Please be aware that advance notice is necessary as some accommodations may require more time for the university to arrange.*
UID:148090-21902937@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/148090
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location - Secret Lab
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260421T085257
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260618T090000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260618T170000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Debbie Thompson Exhibition
DESCRIPTION:Debbie Thompson works predominantly in clay and draws inspiration from the natural world\, which she frequently references in her work. Her interest in ceramics began in high school when she took classes at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills\, Michigan. She later pursued her passion at the University of Michigan School of Art and Design\, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts. She also holds a Master of Arts from Eastern Michigan University and has completed post-graduate studio coursework at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago\, Maryland Institute College of Art\, Rhode Island School of Design\, and Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts.\n\nThompson taught visual art in the Ann Arbor Public Schools for 34 years and has also taught at the University of Michigan School of Education and Washtenaw Community College. She exhibits her work both locally and nationally and was a member of the Clay Gallery. She continues her practice in her home studio and at the Potters Guild in Ann Arbor\, Michigan. She is a member of the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts and the Michigan Ceramic Art Association. Her work is included in the permanent collection of the International Dinnerware Museum.\n\nThompson’s work has been inspired by the natural world since childhood. Although she initially studied biology in college\, she later shifted her focus to visual art. The textures\, colors\, and forms in her pieces are drawn directly from nature.\nSeeds—structures that have enabled plants to move through space and time for over 600 million years—are central to her recent work. They are vital to the continuation of plant life\, and therefore to human survival.\n\nIn this exhibition\, Thompson explores the unseen structures of seeds as revealed through electron microscopy. These images highlight the intricate beauty and ingenuity of nature\, which she interprets through her wall-mounted ceramic sculptures.\n\nAt a time when our planet and its ecosystems face increasing threats\, Thompson’s work serves as a reminder of the importance of preserving the natural world. Recognizing the beauty and significance of these often-unseen forms is a crucial first step toward protecting the life systems on which we all depend.
UID:147884-21902251@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/147884
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:North Campus Research Complex Building 18 - Connection Gallery
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260511T181505
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260618T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260618T190000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Fore-Site (Phase 2): The Stamps Gallery Pillar Project
DESCRIPTION:\n\nFrom September 2025 through November 2026\, Stamps Gallery is partnering in a curatorial collaboration with two Ypsilanti-based\, artist-run project spaces led by Stamps alumni: C.Y.N.K. Studios\, directed by Sally Clegg (Lecturer III and Student Exhibition Coordinator\, MFA ’20) and Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20)\; and Sometimes Space\, directed by Nathan Byrne (Lecturer I\, MFA ’21). Each space hosts dozens of artists annually for exhibitions\, performances\, and events\, fostering experimental work and building community. For this project\, Byrne\, Clegg\, and Narula have been commissioned to reimagine the pillars on Division Street that flank the gallery. In response\, they’ve curated six artists to create new work for the pillars over three cycles:\n\nPhase 1 (September 12 - December 12) artists: Amelia Burns (Cranbrook MFA ’23) and Erin McKenna (MFA ’20)\nPhase 2 (January 12 - August 12) artists: Sally Clegg (MFA ’20) and Kim Karlsrud (MFA ’20)\nPhase 3 (September 12 - November 12) artists: Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20) and Nathan Byrne (MFA ’21)\nPhase 2 Curatorial Statement\n\nCurated by Sometimes Space: Sally Clegg (entry pillar)\nCurated by CYNK Studios: Kim Karlsrud (courtyard pillar)\n\nArtists Sally Clegg and Kim Karlsrud wrap the Division Street pillars in highly site-specific ornament unearthed from the overlooked margins of Ann Arbor. On the Courtyard pillar\, Karlsrud scales up photographs of objects found in liminal spaces surrounding campus buildings on Green Road\, which the artist has encrusted in road salt. On the entryway pillar\, Clegg zooms in on tiny fragments of found material from UMich’s famous “rock” to celebrate nearly seven decades of student art and activism. Both artists uplift aggregate of local human activity to reveal tiny worlds of found form. \n\nSally Clegg: Sentimentary Rock\nSentimentary Rock is a composition of paint slag collected from the UMich rock monument at the corner of Washtenaw Avenue and Hill Street. This colorful composite material has been accumulating at the base of the iconic limestone boulder since the mid 1950’s\, when students began a tradition of painting it in acts of protest\, creativity\, and ritual\, sometimes multiple times per week. Akin to byproducts of industry such as “Fordite” (collectable chunks of automotive overspray sometimes called ‘Detroit agate’)\, Sentimentary Rock includes thousands of layers\, each dripped from a palimpsestic public proclamation. When processed\, sculpted\, sealed\, assembled\, and macro-photographed\, the result is this enlarged array of tiny gems\, intended to celebrate the indissoluble student voice. \n\nKim Karlsrud: What Amasses\nWhat Amasses is an assemblage of everyday found objects collected within the Miller Creek watershed\, an urbanized drainage system that encompasses much of the city of Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan campus. Selected objects were immersed in a road salt solution\, allowing delicate crystalline formations to emerge. Road salt is a common material input into these hydrological networks during the winter months and exists in multiple states of refinement\, expression\, coherence\, and fragmentation. Each object was then arranged\, photographed\, and enlarged to recontextualize these materials in ways that invite deeper reflections on how infrastructure and human agency blur notions of the natural and the artificial. \nArtist Statements/Bios\n\nSally Clegg \nSally Clegg is an artist and educator from Pelham\, Massachusetts. Her studio practice is rooted in sculpture and expanded printmaking\, stemming from a fascination with human efforts to make meaning from our relationships to objects. Clegg integrates history\, popular culture\, literature and philosophy as material for artmaking\, leveraging personal anecdote and humor to reveal the complexity\, absurdity\, and theoretical richness at play in our connections to things and to ourselves. \n\nClegg holds an MFA in Art from The University of Michigan Stamps School of Art & Design\, and a BA in Art & English from Goucher College. She has exhibited nationally and internationally\, and her work can be found in permanent collections at Yale University\, The New York Public Library\, and elsewhere. Her artwork and writing has appeared in ASAP/Journal\, BOMB Magazine\, Sculpture Magazine\, and Hyperallergic. She is a lecturer in Art & Design at the University of Michigan. Website / Instagram\n\n\nKim Karlsrud \nKim Karlsrud is the co-founder of Commonstudio\, a collaborative creative practice that develops socio-ecological and spatial interventions\, installations\, and initiatives working with and within urban landscapes. Her work explores the space between art and design\, and is grounded in the concept of the “commons\,” that which is shared\, as well as that which is ordinary\, banal\, and commonplace.\n\nKarlsrud completed her undergraduate degree in Product Design from Otis College of Art and Design and an MFA in Art from the University of Michigan. She is currently an Assistant Visiting Professor in the College of Design at the University of Oregon\, teaching across Art and Landscape Architecture departments. She jointly received the 2014-15 Prince Charitable Trust Rome Prize in Landscape Architecture\, was a 2017 resident at the Headlands Center for the Arts\, and is the 2025-26 Fuller Fieldscape Fellow. Website / Instagram
UID:138032-21903392@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/138032
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20250828T001529
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260618T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260618T190000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Fore-Site (Phase 3): The Stamps Gallery Pillar Project
DESCRIPTION:From September 2025 through August 2026\, Stamps Gallery is partnering in a curatorial collaboration with two Ypsilanti-based\, artist-run project spaces led by Stamps alumni: C.Y.N.K. Studios\, directed by Sally Clegg (Lecturer III and Student Exhibition Coordinator\, MFA ’20) and Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20)\; and Sometimes Space\, directed by Nathan Byrne (Lecturer I\, MFA ’21). Each space hosts dozens of artists annually for exhibitions\, performances\, and events\, fostering experimental work and building community. For this project\, Byrne\, Clegg\, and Narula have been commissioned to reimagine the pillars on Division Street that flank the gallery. In response\, they've curated six artists to create new work for the pillars over three cycles:\nPhase 1 (September 12 - December 12) artists: Amelia Burns (Cranbrook MFA '23) and Erin McKenna (MFA '20)Phase 2 (January 12 - April 12) artists: Sally Clegg (MFA '20) and Kim Karlsrud (MFA '20)Phase 3 (May 12 - August 12) artists: Abhishek Narula (MFA '20) and Nathan Byrne (MFA '21)\nPhase 3 \nCurated by Sometimes Space: Abhishek Narula (entry pillar)Curated by CYNK Studios: Nathan Byrne (courtyard pillar)
UID:138033-21881348@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/138033
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260608T121512
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260618T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260618T170000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Marianetta Porter: Breath\, Fragment\, Return
DESCRIPTION:\n\nCurated by Juana Williams\, this exhibition examines how Marianetta Porter uses everyday objects\, fragments\, and embodied memory to make absence an active\, living presence while challenging linear histories. Rooted in African American experience\, her practice treats what is discarded\, overlooked\, or missing not as loss\, but as a source of meaning that continues to act on the present. Through her process and materials\, Porter reveals how memory is carried in the body and embedded in ordinary things. Her work also resists forward-moving notions of time\, instead presenting a diasporic temporality in which past\, present\, and lived experience circulate together through repetition\, touch\, and recall. In doing so\, Porter proposes a vision of history as unfinished\, memory as active\, and absence as a force that sustains connection and shapes the present. \n\nMarianetta Porter is a visual artist and product designer whose research and creative practice are grounded in the study of African American history\, culture\, and representation. Through the language of visual art\, she draws connections between historic memory and contemporary African American life\, giving voice to the history of the African diaspora while acknowledging its central influence on the birth and flourishing of American culture.\n\nHer work has been exhibited nationally at institutions such as the Indianapolis Museum of Art\, the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry\, the Spoleto Festival\, the Harriet Tubman Museum\, and the Hampton University Museum of Art.\n\nShe earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts from Hampton University and her Master of Fine Arts from the University of Michigan. The recipient of numerous awards\, Porter is Professor Emeritus at the University of Michigan’s Stamps School of Art and Design.\n\nJuana Williams is a curator and writer whose work explores the intersections of cross-border intellectual history\, cultural memory\, and identity formation as expressed through modern and contemporary art from Africa and its diasporas.\n\nWilliams has held curatorial and academic appointments at organizations including the Detroit Institute of Arts\, Library Street Collective\, Wayne State University\, and the Urban Institute for Contemporary Art. Her curatorial projects have been presented at institutions across the United States and France\, including the Grand Rapids Art Museum\, the Muskegon Museum of Art\, Palais de Tokyo (Paris)\, and the Westmoreland Museum of American Art. In addition\, she has presented lectures at various museums and universities and contributed to numerous exhibition catalogs. Her work has been written about in publications such as Artsy\, Beaux Arts Magazine\, Condé Nast Traveller\, Michigan Chronicle\, and Observer. Williams holds a BA in Fine Art and an MA in Art History from Wayne State University.
UID:147625-21901379@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/147625
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260528T143201
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260618T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260618T180000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:You Next
DESCRIPTION:The University of Michigan Duderstadt Center Gallery presents “You Next”\, a duo exhibition by Thede Ambrose and Kate Donoghue\, curated by Nathan Byrne.\n\nOpening: Friday\, May 29th 6-9pm\nClosing: Sunday\, June 28th 2-5pm\n\nArtifacts\, Illusion\, and the Speculative mediate the exchange between Thede Ambrose and Kate Donoghue’s practices.\n\nReferencing both personal and found documentary and advertisement imagery\, Donoghue investigates the vacuous and hauntingly banal underbelly of commercial aspirations\, constructing paintings that collapse expectations of consumerism into innate and corrupted desires.\n\nAmbrose navigates mediated violence\, spirituality\, and the abject\, manifesting in perverse articulations of belief and reality. Imagistic sculpture and installation are generated through an expansive material interest\, and an extensive archive of found imagery.\n\n“You Next” presents the collisions of these practices. Cautionary tales\, dreams\, and fantasies of objectification come to a head in this collaboration between the two artists.\n\nGallery Hours: Tuesday - Friday\, Noon-6pm and Sunday Noon-6 pm
UID:148455-21904318@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/148455
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Duderstadt Center - Gallery 1019
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260518T110014
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260618T163000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260618T193000
SUMMARY:Workshop / Seminar:Ann Arbor Japan Week 2026 | Yubinuki Workshop: Japanese Thimble Rings
DESCRIPTION:Join local crafter Beth Battey for this unique workshop! Yubinuki translates literally to \"thimble\" in Japanese. It’s a soft and durable cloth thimble ring constructed of a paper or cardboard core wrapped in padding and stitched with colorful threads to create geometric designs. The stitching resembles a temari ball obi\, but the creation and setup are not quite as labor-intensive.\n   \n   This event is part of Ann Arbor Japan Week 2026\, held in partnership with the Ann Arbor District Library: https://aadl.org/node/668256\n   \n   The 12th annual Ann Arbor Japan Week is from June 14 to 20. Join us for an exciting week of free\, Japan-themed events and activities for all ages! View the complete schedule at: https://myumi.ch/V7nxn.\n\n*Accommodation: If there is anything we can do to make this event accessible to you\, please contact us at cjsevents@umich.edu. Please be aware that advance notice is necessary as some accommodations may require more time for the university to arrange.*
UID:148091-21902938@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/148091
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location - 1st Floor Lobby
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260511T181505
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260619T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260619T190000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Fore-Site (Phase 2): The Stamps Gallery Pillar Project
DESCRIPTION:\n\nFrom September 2025 through November 2026\, Stamps Gallery is partnering in a curatorial collaboration with two Ypsilanti-based\, artist-run project spaces led by Stamps alumni: C.Y.N.K. Studios\, directed by Sally Clegg (Lecturer III and Student Exhibition Coordinator\, MFA ’20) and Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20)\; and Sometimes Space\, directed by Nathan Byrne (Lecturer I\, MFA ’21). Each space hosts dozens of artists annually for exhibitions\, performances\, and events\, fostering experimental work and building community. For this project\, Byrne\, Clegg\, and Narula have been commissioned to reimagine the pillars on Division Street that flank the gallery. In response\, they’ve curated six artists to create new work for the pillars over three cycles:\n\nPhase 1 (September 12 - December 12) artists: Amelia Burns (Cranbrook MFA ’23) and Erin McKenna (MFA ’20)\nPhase 2 (January 12 - August 12) artists: Sally Clegg (MFA ’20) and Kim Karlsrud (MFA ’20)\nPhase 3 (September 12 - November 12) artists: Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20) and Nathan Byrne (MFA ’21)\nPhase 2 Curatorial Statement\n\nCurated by Sometimes Space: Sally Clegg (entry pillar)\nCurated by CYNK Studios: Kim Karlsrud (courtyard pillar)\n\nArtists Sally Clegg and Kim Karlsrud wrap the Division Street pillars in highly site-specific ornament unearthed from the overlooked margins of Ann Arbor. On the Courtyard pillar\, Karlsrud scales up photographs of objects found in liminal spaces surrounding campus buildings on Green Road\, which the artist has encrusted in road salt. On the entryway pillar\, Clegg zooms in on tiny fragments of found material from UMich’s famous “rock” to celebrate nearly seven decades of student art and activism. Both artists uplift aggregate of local human activity to reveal tiny worlds of found form. \n\nSally Clegg: Sentimentary Rock\nSentimentary Rock is a composition of paint slag collected from the UMich rock monument at the corner of Washtenaw Avenue and Hill Street. This colorful composite material has been accumulating at the base of the iconic limestone boulder since the mid 1950’s\, when students began a tradition of painting it in acts of protest\, creativity\, and ritual\, sometimes multiple times per week. Akin to byproducts of industry such as “Fordite” (collectable chunks of automotive overspray sometimes called ‘Detroit agate’)\, Sentimentary Rock includes thousands of layers\, each dripped from a palimpsestic public proclamation. When processed\, sculpted\, sealed\, assembled\, and macro-photographed\, the result is this enlarged array of tiny gems\, intended to celebrate the indissoluble student voice. \n\nKim Karlsrud: What Amasses\nWhat Amasses is an assemblage of everyday found objects collected within the Miller Creek watershed\, an urbanized drainage system that encompasses much of the city of Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan campus. Selected objects were immersed in a road salt solution\, allowing delicate crystalline formations to emerge. Road salt is a common material input into these hydrological networks during the winter months and exists in multiple states of refinement\, expression\, coherence\, and fragmentation. Each object was then arranged\, photographed\, and enlarged to recontextualize these materials in ways that invite deeper reflections on how infrastructure and human agency blur notions of the natural and the artificial. \nArtist Statements/Bios\n\nSally Clegg \nSally Clegg is an artist and educator from Pelham\, Massachusetts. Her studio practice is rooted in sculpture and expanded printmaking\, stemming from a fascination with human efforts to make meaning from our relationships to objects. Clegg integrates history\, popular culture\, literature and philosophy as material for artmaking\, leveraging personal anecdote and humor to reveal the complexity\, absurdity\, and theoretical richness at play in our connections to things and to ourselves. \n\nClegg holds an MFA in Art from The University of Michigan Stamps School of Art & Design\, and a BA in Art & English from Goucher College. She has exhibited nationally and internationally\, and her work can be found in permanent collections at Yale University\, The New York Public Library\, and elsewhere. Her artwork and writing has appeared in ASAP/Journal\, BOMB Magazine\, Sculpture Magazine\, and Hyperallergic. She is a lecturer in Art & Design at the University of Michigan. Website / Instagram\n\n\nKim Karlsrud \nKim Karlsrud is the co-founder of Commonstudio\, a collaborative creative practice that develops socio-ecological and spatial interventions\, installations\, and initiatives working with and within urban landscapes. Her work explores the space between art and design\, and is grounded in the concept of the “commons\,” that which is shared\, as well as that which is ordinary\, banal\, and commonplace.\n\nKarlsrud completed her undergraduate degree in Product Design from Otis College of Art and Design and an MFA in Art from the University of Michigan. She is currently an Assistant Visiting Professor in the College of Design at the University of Oregon\, teaching across Art and Landscape Architecture departments. She jointly received the 2014-15 Prince Charitable Trust Rome Prize in Landscape Architecture\, was a 2017 resident at the Headlands Center for the Arts\, and is the 2025-26 Fuller Fieldscape Fellow. Website / Instagram
UID:138032-21903393@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/138032
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20250828T001529
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260619T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260619T190000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Fore-Site (Phase 3): The Stamps Gallery Pillar Project
DESCRIPTION:From September 2025 through August 2026\, Stamps Gallery is partnering in a curatorial collaboration with two Ypsilanti-based\, artist-run project spaces led by Stamps alumni: C.Y.N.K. Studios\, directed by Sally Clegg (Lecturer III and Student Exhibition Coordinator\, MFA ’20) and Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20)\; and Sometimes Space\, directed by Nathan Byrne (Lecturer I\, MFA ’21). Each space hosts dozens of artists annually for exhibitions\, performances\, and events\, fostering experimental work and building community. For this project\, Byrne\, Clegg\, and Narula have been commissioned to reimagine the pillars on Division Street that flank the gallery. In response\, they've curated six artists to create new work for the pillars over three cycles:\nPhase 1 (September 12 - December 12) artists: Amelia Burns (Cranbrook MFA '23) and Erin McKenna (MFA '20)Phase 2 (January 12 - April 12) artists: Sally Clegg (MFA '20) and Kim Karlsrud (MFA '20)Phase 3 (May 12 - August 12) artists: Abhishek Narula (MFA '20) and Nathan Byrne (MFA '21)\nPhase 3 \nCurated by Sometimes Space: Abhishek Narula (entry pillar)Curated by CYNK Studios: Nathan Byrne (courtyard pillar)
UID:138033-21881349@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/138033
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260608T121512
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260619T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260619T170000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Marianetta Porter: Breath\, Fragment\, Return
DESCRIPTION:\n\nCurated by Juana Williams\, this exhibition examines how Marianetta Porter uses everyday objects\, fragments\, and embodied memory to make absence an active\, living presence while challenging linear histories. Rooted in African American experience\, her practice treats what is discarded\, overlooked\, or missing not as loss\, but as a source of meaning that continues to act on the present. Through her process and materials\, Porter reveals how memory is carried in the body and embedded in ordinary things. Her work also resists forward-moving notions of time\, instead presenting a diasporic temporality in which past\, present\, and lived experience circulate together through repetition\, touch\, and recall. In doing so\, Porter proposes a vision of history as unfinished\, memory as active\, and absence as a force that sustains connection and shapes the present. \n\nMarianetta Porter is a visual artist and product designer whose research and creative practice are grounded in the study of African American history\, culture\, and representation. Through the language of visual art\, she draws connections between historic memory and contemporary African American life\, giving voice to the history of the African diaspora while acknowledging its central influence on the birth and flourishing of American culture.\n\nHer work has been exhibited nationally at institutions such as the Indianapolis Museum of Art\, the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry\, the Spoleto Festival\, the Harriet Tubman Museum\, and the Hampton University Museum of Art.\n\nShe earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts from Hampton University and her Master of Fine Arts from the University of Michigan. The recipient of numerous awards\, Porter is Professor Emeritus at the University of Michigan’s Stamps School of Art and Design.\n\nJuana Williams is a curator and writer whose work explores the intersections of cross-border intellectual history\, cultural memory\, and identity formation as expressed through modern and contemporary art from Africa and its diasporas.\n\nWilliams has held curatorial and academic appointments at organizations including the Detroit Institute of Arts\, Library Street Collective\, Wayne State University\, and the Urban Institute for Contemporary Art. Her curatorial projects have been presented at institutions across the United States and France\, including the Grand Rapids Art Museum\, the Muskegon Museum of Art\, Palais de Tokyo (Paris)\, and the Westmoreland Museum of American Art. In addition\, she has presented lectures at various museums and universities and contributed to numerous exhibition catalogs. Her work has been written about in publications such as Artsy\, Beaux Arts Magazine\, Condé Nast Traveller\, Michigan Chronicle\, and Observer. Williams holds a BA in Fine Art and an MA in Art History from Wayne State University.
UID:147625-21901380@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/147625
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260528T143201
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260619T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260619T180000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:You Next
DESCRIPTION:The University of Michigan Duderstadt Center Gallery presents “You Next”\, a duo exhibition by Thede Ambrose and Kate Donoghue\, curated by Nathan Byrne.\n\nOpening: Friday\, May 29th 6-9pm\nClosing: Sunday\, June 28th 2-5pm\n\nArtifacts\, Illusion\, and the Speculative mediate the exchange between Thede Ambrose and Kate Donoghue’s practices.\n\nReferencing both personal and found documentary and advertisement imagery\, Donoghue investigates the vacuous and hauntingly banal underbelly of commercial aspirations\, constructing paintings that collapse expectations of consumerism into innate and corrupted desires.\n\nAmbrose navigates mediated violence\, spirituality\, and the abject\, manifesting in perverse articulations of belief and reality. Imagistic sculpture and installation are generated through an expansive material interest\, and an extensive archive of found imagery.\n\n“You Next” presents the collisions of these practices. Cautionary tales\, dreams\, and fantasies of objectification come to a head in this collaboration between the two artists.\n\nGallery Hours: Tuesday - Friday\, Noon-6pm and Sunday Noon-6 pm
UID:148455-21904319@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/148455
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Duderstadt Center - Gallery 1019
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260511T181505
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260620T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260620T190000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Fore-Site (Phase 2): The Stamps Gallery Pillar Project
DESCRIPTION:\n\nFrom September 2025 through November 2026\, Stamps Gallery is partnering in a curatorial collaboration with two Ypsilanti-based\, artist-run project spaces led by Stamps alumni: C.Y.N.K. Studios\, directed by Sally Clegg (Lecturer III and Student Exhibition Coordinator\, MFA ’20) and Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20)\; and Sometimes Space\, directed by Nathan Byrne (Lecturer I\, MFA ’21). Each space hosts dozens of artists annually for exhibitions\, performances\, and events\, fostering experimental work and building community. For this project\, Byrne\, Clegg\, and Narula have been commissioned to reimagine the pillars on Division Street that flank the gallery. In response\, they’ve curated six artists to create new work for the pillars over three cycles:\n\nPhase 1 (September 12 - December 12) artists: Amelia Burns (Cranbrook MFA ’23) and Erin McKenna (MFA ’20)\nPhase 2 (January 12 - August 12) artists: Sally Clegg (MFA ’20) and Kim Karlsrud (MFA ’20)\nPhase 3 (September 12 - November 12) artists: Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20) and Nathan Byrne (MFA ’21)\nPhase 2 Curatorial Statement\n\nCurated by Sometimes Space: Sally Clegg (entry pillar)\nCurated by CYNK Studios: Kim Karlsrud (courtyard pillar)\n\nArtists Sally Clegg and Kim Karlsrud wrap the Division Street pillars in highly site-specific ornament unearthed from the overlooked margins of Ann Arbor. On the Courtyard pillar\, Karlsrud scales up photographs of objects found in liminal spaces surrounding campus buildings on Green Road\, which the artist has encrusted in road salt. On the entryway pillar\, Clegg zooms in on tiny fragments of found material from UMich’s famous “rock” to celebrate nearly seven decades of student art and activism. Both artists uplift aggregate of local human activity to reveal tiny worlds of found form. \n\nSally Clegg: Sentimentary Rock\nSentimentary Rock is a composition of paint slag collected from the UMich rock monument at the corner of Washtenaw Avenue and Hill Street. This colorful composite material has been accumulating at the base of the iconic limestone boulder since the mid 1950’s\, when students began a tradition of painting it in acts of protest\, creativity\, and ritual\, sometimes multiple times per week. Akin to byproducts of industry such as “Fordite” (collectable chunks of automotive overspray sometimes called ‘Detroit agate’)\, Sentimentary Rock includes thousands of layers\, each dripped from a palimpsestic public proclamation. When processed\, sculpted\, sealed\, assembled\, and macro-photographed\, the result is this enlarged array of tiny gems\, intended to celebrate the indissoluble student voice. \n\nKim Karlsrud: What Amasses\nWhat Amasses is an assemblage of everyday found objects collected within the Miller Creek watershed\, an urbanized drainage system that encompasses much of the city of Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan campus. Selected objects were immersed in a road salt solution\, allowing delicate crystalline formations to emerge. Road salt is a common material input into these hydrological networks during the winter months and exists in multiple states of refinement\, expression\, coherence\, and fragmentation. Each object was then arranged\, photographed\, and enlarged to recontextualize these materials in ways that invite deeper reflections on how infrastructure and human agency blur notions of the natural and the artificial. \nArtist Statements/Bios\n\nSally Clegg \nSally Clegg is an artist and educator from Pelham\, Massachusetts. Her studio practice is rooted in sculpture and expanded printmaking\, stemming from a fascination with human efforts to make meaning from our relationships to objects. Clegg integrates history\, popular culture\, literature and philosophy as material for artmaking\, leveraging personal anecdote and humor to reveal the complexity\, absurdity\, and theoretical richness at play in our connections to things and to ourselves. \n\nClegg holds an MFA in Art from The University of Michigan Stamps School of Art & Design\, and a BA in Art & English from Goucher College. She has exhibited nationally and internationally\, and her work can be found in permanent collections at Yale University\, The New York Public Library\, and elsewhere. Her artwork and writing has appeared in ASAP/Journal\, BOMB Magazine\, Sculpture Magazine\, and Hyperallergic. She is a lecturer in Art & Design at the University of Michigan. Website / Instagram\n\n\nKim Karlsrud \nKim Karlsrud is the co-founder of Commonstudio\, a collaborative creative practice that develops socio-ecological and spatial interventions\, installations\, and initiatives working with and within urban landscapes. Her work explores the space between art and design\, and is grounded in the concept of the “commons\,” that which is shared\, as well as that which is ordinary\, banal\, and commonplace.\n\nKarlsrud completed her undergraduate degree in Product Design from Otis College of Art and Design and an MFA in Art from the University of Michigan. She is currently an Assistant Visiting Professor in the College of Design at the University of Oregon\, teaching across Art and Landscape Architecture departments. She jointly received the 2014-15 Prince Charitable Trust Rome Prize in Landscape Architecture\, was a 2017 resident at the Headlands Center for the Arts\, and is the 2025-26 Fuller Fieldscape Fellow. Website / Instagram
UID:138032-21903394@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/138032
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20250828T001529
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260620T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260620T190000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Fore-Site (Phase 3): The Stamps Gallery Pillar Project
DESCRIPTION:From September 2025 through August 2026\, Stamps Gallery is partnering in a curatorial collaboration with two Ypsilanti-based\, artist-run project spaces led by Stamps alumni: C.Y.N.K. Studios\, directed by Sally Clegg (Lecturer III and Student Exhibition Coordinator\, MFA ’20) and Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20)\; and Sometimes Space\, directed by Nathan Byrne (Lecturer I\, MFA ’21). Each space hosts dozens of artists annually for exhibitions\, performances\, and events\, fostering experimental work and building community. For this project\, Byrne\, Clegg\, and Narula have been commissioned to reimagine the pillars on Division Street that flank the gallery. In response\, they've curated six artists to create new work for the pillars over three cycles:\nPhase 1 (September 12 - December 12) artists: Amelia Burns (Cranbrook MFA '23) and Erin McKenna (MFA '20)Phase 2 (January 12 - April 12) artists: Sally Clegg (MFA '20) and Kim Karlsrud (MFA '20)Phase 3 (May 12 - August 12) artists: Abhishek Narula (MFA '20) and Nathan Byrne (MFA '21)\nPhase 3 \nCurated by Sometimes Space: Abhishek Narula (entry pillar)Curated by CYNK Studios: Nathan Byrne (courtyard pillar)
UID:138033-21881350@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/138033
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260608T121512
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260620T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260620T170000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Marianetta Porter: Breath\, Fragment\, Return
DESCRIPTION:\n\nCurated by Juana Williams\, this exhibition examines how Marianetta Porter uses everyday objects\, fragments\, and embodied memory to make absence an active\, living presence while challenging linear histories. Rooted in African American experience\, her practice treats what is discarded\, overlooked\, or missing not as loss\, but as a source of meaning that continues to act on the present. Through her process and materials\, Porter reveals how memory is carried in the body and embedded in ordinary things. Her work also resists forward-moving notions of time\, instead presenting a diasporic temporality in which past\, present\, and lived experience circulate together through repetition\, touch\, and recall. In doing so\, Porter proposes a vision of history as unfinished\, memory as active\, and absence as a force that sustains connection and shapes the present. \n\nMarianetta Porter is a visual artist and product designer whose research and creative practice are grounded in the study of African American history\, culture\, and representation. Through the language of visual art\, she draws connections between historic memory and contemporary African American life\, giving voice to the history of the African diaspora while acknowledging its central influence on the birth and flourishing of American culture.\n\nHer work has been exhibited nationally at institutions such as the Indianapolis Museum of Art\, the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry\, the Spoleto Festival\, the Harriet Tubman Museum\, and the Hampton University Museum of Art.\n\nShe earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts from Hampton University and her Master of Fine Arts from the University of Michigan. The recipient of numerous awards\, Porter is Professor Emeritus at the University of Michigan’s Stamps School of Art and Design.\n\nJuana Williams is a curator and writer whose work explores the intersections of cross-border intellectual history\, cultural memory\, and identity formation as expressed through modern and contemporary art from Africa and its diasporas.\n\nWilliams has held curatorial and academic appointments at organizations including the Detroit Institute of Arts\, Library Street Collective\, Wayne State University\, and the Urban Institute for Contemporary Art. Her curatorial projects have been presented at institutions across the United States and France\, including the Grand Rapids Art Museum\, the Muskegon Museum of Art\, Palais de Tokyo (Paris)\, and the Westmoreland Museum of American Art. In addition\, she has presented lectures at various museums and universities and contributed to numerous exhibition catalogs. Her work has been written about in publications such as Artsy\, Beaux Arts Magazine\, Condé Nast Traveller\, Michigan Chronicle\, and Observer. Williams holds a BA in Fine Art and an MA in Art History from Wayne State University.
UID:147625-21901381@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/147625
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260511T115949
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260620T140000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260620T150000
SUMMARY:Tours:Saturday Sampler Tour | “My Favorite Things”
DESCRIPTION:Join docent Robin Little as she explores her favorite things in the Kelsey Museum. Get an up-close look at incantation bowls (and their demon-trapping properties)\, ancient Egyptian adornment (including a striking faience necklace)\, and other beautiful\, interesting\, and thought-provoking objects from the ancient world.\n\nThis event is free and open to all visitors. If you have any questions or concerns regarding accessing this event\, please visit our accessibility page at https://myumi.ch/zwPkd or contact the education office by calling (734) 647-4167. We ask for advance notice as some accommodations may require more time for the university to arrange.
UID:148217-21903328@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/148217
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Kelsey Museum of Archaeology
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260528T143201
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260621T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260621T180000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:You Next
DESCRIPTION:The University of Michigan Duderstadt Center Gallery presents “You Next”\, a duo exhibition by Thede Ambrose and Kate Donoghue\, curated by Nathan Byrne.\n\nOpening: Friday\, May 29th 6-9pm\nClosing: Sunday\, June 28th 2-5pm\n\nArtifacts\, Illusion\, and the Speculative mediate the exchange between Thede Ambrose and Kate Donoghue’s practices.\n\nReferencing both personal and found documentary and advertisement imagery\, Donoghue investigates the vacuous and hauntingly banal underbelly of commercial aspirations\, constructing paintings that collapse expectations of consumerism into innate and corrupted desires.\n\nAmbrose navigates mediated violence\, spirituality\, and the abject\, manifesting in perverse articulations of belief and reality. Imagistic sculpture and installation are generated through an expansive material interest\, and an extensive archive of found imagery.\n\n“You Next” presents the collisions of these practices. Cautionary tales\, dreams\, and fantasies of objectification come to a head in this collaboration between the two artists.\n\nGallery Hours: Tuesday - Friday\, Noon-6pm and Sunday Noon-6 pm
UID:148455-21904321@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/148455
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Duderstadt Center - Gallery 1019
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260421T085257
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260622T090000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260622T170000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Debbie Thompson Exhibition
DESCRIPTION:Debbie Thompson works predominantly in clay and draws inspiration from the natural world\, which she frequently references in her work. Her interest in ceramics began in high school when she took classes at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills\, Michigan. She later pursued her passion at the University of Michigan School of Art and Design\, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts. She also holds a Master of Arts from Eastern Michigan University and has completed post-graduate studio coursework at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago\, Maryland Institute College of Art\, Rhode Island School of Design\, and Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts.\n\nThompson taught visual art in the Ann Arbor Public Schools for 34 years and has also taught at the University of Michigan School of Education and Washtenaw Community College. She exhibits her work both locally and nationally and was a member of the Clay Gallery. She continues her practice in her home studio and at the Potters Guild in Ann Arbor\, Michigan. She is a member of the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts and the Michigan Ceramic Art Association. Her work is included in the permanent collection of the International Dinnerware Museum.\n\nThompson’s work has been inspired by the natural world since childhood. Although she initially studied biology in college\, she later shifted her focus to visual art. The textures\, colors\, and forms in her pieces are drawn directly from nature.\nSeeds—structures that have enabled plants to move through space and time for over 600 million years—are central to her recent work. They are vital to the continuation of plant life\, and therefore to human survival.\n\nIn this exhibition\, Thompson explores the unseen structures of seeds as revealed through electron microscopy. These images highlight the intricate beauty and ingenuity of nature\, which she interprets through her wall-mounted ceramic sculptures.\n\nAt a time when our planet and its ecosystems face increasing threats\, Thompson’s work serves as a reminder of the importance of preserving the natural world. Recognizing the beauty and significance of these often-unseen forms is a crucial first step toward protecting the life systems on which we all depend.
UID:147884-21902255@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/147884
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:North Campus Research Complex Building 18 - Connection Gallery
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260529T181517
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260622T150000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260622T160000
SUMMARY:Other:Virtual Information Session
DESCRIPTION:\n\nJoin us for a virtual\, hour-long info session on undergraduate programs at the University of Michigan Stamps School of Art & Design\, including a presentation and Q&A with current students and the admissions team.\n\nInfo session times are Eastern US.\n\nVisit our Admissions Events page to learn more about additional upcoming events.
UID:148491-21904371@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/148491
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260421T085257
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260623T090000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260623T170000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Debbie Thompson Exhibition
DESCRIPTION:Debbie Thompson works predominantly in clay and draws inspiration from the natural world\, which she frequently references in her work. Her interest in ceramics began in high school when she took classes at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills\, Michigan. She later pursued her passion at the University of Michigan School of Art and Design\, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts. She also holds a Master of Arts from Eastern Michigan University and has completed post-graduate studio coursework at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago\, Maryland Institute College of Art\, Rhode Island School of Design\, and Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts.\n\nThompson taught visual art in the Ann Arbor Public Schools for 34 years and has also taught at the University of Michigan School of Education and Washtenaw Community College. She exhibits her work both locally and nationally and was a member of the Clay Gallery. She continues her practice in her home studio and at the Potters Guild in Ann Arbor\, Michigan. She is a member of the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts and the Michigan Ceramic Art Association. Her work is included in the permanent collection of the International Dinnerware Museum.\n\nThompson’s work has been inspired by the natural world since childhood. Although she initially studied biology in college\, she later shifted her focus to visual art. The textures\, colors\, and forms in her pieces are drawn directly from nature.\nSeeds—structures that have enabled plants to move through space and time for over 600 million years—are central to her recent work. They are vital to the continuation of plant life\, and therefore to human survival.\n\nIn this exhibition\, Thompson explores the unseen structures of seeds as revealed through electron microscopy. These images highlight the intricate beauty and ingenuity of nature\, which she interprets through her wall-mounted ceramic sculptures.\n\nAt a time when our planet and its ecosystems face increasing threats\, Thompson’s work serves as a reminder of the importance of preserving the natural world. Recognizing the beauty and significance of these often-unseen forms is a crucial first step toward protecting the life systems on which we all depend.
UID:147884-21902256@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/147884
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:North Campus Research Complex Building 18 - Connection Gallery
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260528T143201
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260623T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260623T180000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:You Next
DESCRIPTION:The University of Michigan Duderstadt Center Gallery presents “You Next”\, a duo exhibition by Thede Ambrose and Kate Donoghue\, curated by Nathan Byrne.\n\nOpening: Friday\, May 29th 6-9pm\nClosing: Sunday\, June 28th 2-5pm\n\nArtifacts\, Illusion\, and the Speculative mediate the exchange between Thede Ambrose and Kate Donoghue’s practices.\n\nReferencing both personal and found documentary and advertisement imagery\, Donoghue investigates the vacuous and hauntingly banal underbelly of commercial aspirations\, constructing paintings that collapse expectations of consumerism into innate and corrupted desires.\n\nAmbrose navigates mediated violence\, spirituality\, and the abject\, manifesting in perverse articulations of belief and reality. Imagistic sculpture and installation are generated through an expansive material interest\, and an extensive archive of found imagery.\n\n“You Next” presents the collisions of these practices. Cautionary tales\, dreams\, and fantasies of objectification come to a head in this collaboration between the two artists.\n\nGallery Hours: Tuesday - Friday\, Noon-6pm and Sunday Noon-6 pm
UID:148455-21904323@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/148455
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Duderstadt Center - Gallery 1019
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260421T085257
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260624T090000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260624T170000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Debbie Thompson Exhibition
DESCRIPTION:Debbie Thompson works predominantly in clay and draws inspiration from the natural world\, which she frequently references in her work. Her interest in ceramics began in high school when she took classes at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills\, Michigan. She later pursued her passion at the University of Michigan School of Art and Design\, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts. She also holds a Master of Arts from Eastern Michigan University and has completed post-graduate studio coursework at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago\, Maryland Institute College of Art\, Rhode Island School of Design\, and Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts.\n\nThompson taught visual art in the Ann Arbor Public Schools for 34 years and has also taught at the University of Michigan School of Education and Washtenaw Community College. She exhibits her work both locally and nationally and was a member of the Clay Gallery. She continues her practice in her home studio and at the Potters Guild in Ann Arbor\, Michigan. She is a member of the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts and the Michigan Ceramic Art Association. Her work is included in the permanent collection of the International Dinnerware Museum.\n\nThompson’s work has been inspired by the natural world since childhood. Although she initially studied biology in college\, she later shifted her focus to visual art. The textures\, colors\, and forms in her pieces are drawn directly from nature.\nSeeds—structures that have enabled plants to move through space and time for over 600 million years—are central to her recent work. They are vital to the continuation of plant life\, and therefore to human survival.\n\nIn this exhibition\, Thompson explores the unseen structures of seeds as revealed through electron microscopy. These images highlight the intricate beauty and ingenuity of nature\, which she interprets through her wall-mounted ceramic sculptures.\n\nAt a time when our planet and its ecosystems face increasing threats\, Thompson’s work serves as a reminder of the importance of preserving the natural world. Recognizing the beauty and significance of these often-unseen forms is a crucial first step toward protecting the life systems on which we all depend.
UID:147884-21902257@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/147884
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:North Campus Research Complex Building 18 - Connection Gallery
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260511T181505
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260624T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260624T190000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Fore-Site (Phase 2): The Stamps Gallery Pillar Project
DESCRIPTION:\n\nFrom September 2025 through November 2026\, Stamps Gallery is partnering in a curatorial collaboration with two Ypsilanti-based\, artist-run project spaces led by Stamps alumni: C.Y.N.K. Studios\, directed by Sally Clegg (Lecturer III and Student Exhibition Coordinator\, MFA ’20) and Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20)\; and Sometimes Space\, directed by Nathan Byrne (Lecturer I\, MFA ’21). Each space hosts dozens of artists annually for exhibitions\, performances\, and events\, fostering experimental work and building community. For this project\, Byrne\, Clegg\, and Narula have been commissioned to reimagine the pillars on Division Street that flank the gallery. In response\, they’ve curated six artists to create new work for the pillars over three cycles:\n\nPhase 1 (September 12 - December 12) artists: Amelia Burns (Cranbrook MFA ’23) and Erin McKenna (MFA ’20)\nPhase 2 (January 12 - August 12) artists: Sally Clegg (MFA ’20) and Kim Karlsrud (MFA ’20)\nPhase 3 (September 12 - November 12) artists: Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20) and Nathan Byrne (MFA ’21)\nPhase 2 Curatorial Statement\n\nCurated by Sometimes Space: Sally Clegg (entry pillar)\nCurated by CYNK Studios: Kim Karlsrud (courtyard pillar)\n\nArtists Sally Clegg and Kim Karlsrud wrap the Division Street pillars in highly site-specific ornament unearthed from the overlooked margins of Ann Arbor. On the Courtyard pillar\, Karlsrud scales up photographs of objects found in liminal spaces surrounding campus buildings on Green Road\, which the artist has encrusted in road salt. On the entryway pillar\, Clegg zooms in on tiny fragments of found material from UMich’s famous “rock” to celebrate nearly seven decades of student art and activism. Both artists uplift aggregate of local human activity to reveal tiny worlds of found form. \n\nSally Clegg: Sentimentary Rock\nSentimentary Rock is a composition of paint slag collected from the UMich rock monument at the corner of Washtenaw Avenue and Hill Street. This colorful composite material has been accumulating at the base of the iconic limestone boulder since the mid 1950’s\, when students began a tradition of painting it in acts of protest\, creativity\, and ritual\, sometimes multiple times per week. Akin to byproducts of industry such as “Fordite” (collectable chunks of automotive overspray sometimes called ‘Detroit agate’)\, Sentimentary Rock includes thousands of layers\, each dripped from a palimpsestic public proclamation. When processed\, sculpted\, sealed\, assembled\, and macro-photographed\, the result is this enlarged array of tiny gems\, intended to celebrate the indissoluble student voice. \n\nKim Karlsrud: What Amasses\nWhat Amasses is an assemblage of everyday found objects collected within the Miller Creek watershed\, an urbanized drainage system that encompasses much of the city of Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan campus. Selected objects were immersed in a road salt solution\, allowing delicate crystalline formations to emerge. Road salt is a common material input into these hydrological networks during the winter months and exists in multiple states of refinement\, expression\, coherence\, and fragmentation. Each object was then arranged\, photographed\, and enlarged to recontextualize these materials in ways that invite deeper reflections on how infrastructure and human agency blur notions of the natural and the artificial. \nArtist Statements/Bios\n\nSally Clegg \nSally Clegg is an artist and educator from Pelham\, Massachusetts. Her studio practice is rooted in sculpture and expanded printmaking\, stemming from a fascination with human efforts to make meaning from our relationships to objects. Clegg integrates history\, popular culture\, literature and philosophy as material for artmaking\, leveraging personal anecdote and humor to reveal the complexity\, absurdity\, and theoretical richness at play in our connections to things and to ourselves. \n\nClegg holds an MFA in Art from The University of Michigan Stamps School of Art & Design\, and a BA in Art & English from Goucher College. She has exhibited nationally and internationally\, and her work can be found in permanent collections at Yale University\, The New York Public Library\, and elsewhere. Her artwork and writing has appeared in ASAP/Journal\, BOMB Magazine\, Sculpture Magazine\, and Hyperallergic. She is a lecturer in Art & Design at the University of Michigan. Website / Instagram\n\n\nKim Karlsrud \nKim Karlsrud is the co-founder of Commonstudio\, a collaborative creative practice that develops socio-ecological and spatial interventions\, installations\, and initiatives working with and within urban landscapes. Her work explores the space between art and design\, and is grounded in the concept of the “commons\,” that which is shared\, as well as that which is ordinary\, banal\, and commonplace.\n\nKarlsrud completed her undergraduate degree in Product Design from Otis College of Art and Design and an MFA in Art from the University of Michigan. She is currently an Assistant Visiting Professor in the College of Design at the University of Oregon\, teaching across Art and Landscape Architecture departments. She jointly received the 2014-15 Prince Charitable Trust Rome Prize in Landscape Architecture\, was a 2017 resident at the Headlands Center for the Arts\, and is the 2025-26 Fuller Fieldscape Fellow. Website / Instagram
UID:138032-21903395@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/138032
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20250828T001529
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260624T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260624T190000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Fore-Site (Phase 3): The Stamps Gallery Pillar Project
DESCRIPTION:From September 2025 through August 2026\, Stamps Gallery is partnering in a curatorial collaboration with two Ypsilanti-based\, artist-run project spaces led by Stamps alumni: C.Y.N.K. Studios\, directed by Sally Clegg (Lecturer III and Student Exhibition Coordinator\, MFA ’20) and Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20)\; and Sometimes Space\, directed by Nathan Byrne (Lecturer I\, MFA ’21). Each space hosts dozens of artists annually for exhibitions\, performances\, and events\, fostering experimental work and building community. For this project\, Byrne\, Clegg\, and Narula have been commissioned to reimagine the pillars on Division Street that flank the gallery. In response\, they've curated six artists to create new work for the pillars over three cycles:\nPhase 1 (September 12 - December 12) artists: Amelia Burns (Cranbrook MFA '23) and Erin McKenna (MFA '20)Phase 2 (January 12 - April 12) artists: Sally Clegg (MFA '20) and Kim Karlsrud (MFA '20)Phase 3 (May 12 - August 12) artists: Abhishek Narula (MFA '20) and Nathan Byrne (MFA '21)\nPhase 3 \nCurated by Sometimes Space: Abhishek Narula (entry pillar)Curated by CYNK Studios: Nathan Byrne (courtyard pillar)
UID:138033-21881351@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/138033
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260608T121512
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260624T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260624T170000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Marianetta Porter: Breath\, Fragment\, Return
DESCRIPTION:\n\nCurated by Juana Williams\, this exhibition examines how Marianetta Porter uses everyday objects\, fragments\, and embodied memory to make absence an active\, living presence while challenging linear histories. Rooted in African American experience\, her practice treats what is discarded\, overlooked\, or missing not as loss\, but as a source of meaning that continues to act on the present. Through her process and materials\, Porter reveals how memory is carried in the body and embedded in ordinary things. Her work also resists forward-moving notions of time\, instead presenting a diasporic temporality in which past\, present\, and lived experience circulate together through repetition\, touch\, and recall. In doing so\, Porter proposes a vision of history as unfinished\, memory as active\, and absence as a force that sustains connection and shapes the present. \n\nMarianetta Porter is a visual artist and product designer whose research and creative practice are grounded in the study of African American history\, culture\, and representation. Through the language of visual art\, she draws connections between historic memory and contemporary African American life\, giving voice to the history of the African diaspora while acknowledging its central influence on the birth and flourishing of American culture.\n\nHer work has been exhibited nationally at institutions such as the Indianapolis Museum of Art\, the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry\, the Spoleto Festival\, the Harriet Tubman Museum\, and the Hampton University Museum of Art.\n\nShe earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts from Hampton University and her Master of Fine Arts from the University of Michigan. The recipient of numerous awards\, Porter is Professor Emeritus at the University of Michigan’s Stamps School of Art and Design.\n\nJuana Williams is a curator and writer whose work explores the intersections of cross-border intellectual history\, cultural memory\, and identity formation as expressed through modern and contemporary art from Africa and its diasporas.\n\nWilliams has held curatorial and academic appointments at organizations including the Detroit Institute of Arts\, Library Street Collective\, Wayne State University\, and the Urban Institute for Contemporary Art. Her curatorial projects have been presented at institutions across the United States and France\, including the Grand Rapids Art Museum\, the Muskegon Museum of Art\, Palais de Tokyo (Paris)\, and the Westmoreland Museum of American Art. In addition\, she has presented lectures at various museums and universities and contributed to numerous exhibition catalogs. Her work has been written about in publications such as Artsy\, Beaux Arts Magazine\, Condé Nast Traveller\, Michigan Chronicle\, and Observer. Williams holds a BA in Fine Art and an MA in Art History from Wayne State University.
UID:147625-21901382@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/147625
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260528T143201
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260624T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260624T180000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:You Next
DESCRIPTION:The University of Michigan Duderstadt Center Gallery presents “You Next”\, a duo exhibition by Thede Ambrose and Kate Donoghue\, curated by Nathan Byrne.\n\nOpening: Friday\, May 29th 6-9pm\nClosing: Sunday\, June 28th 2-5pm\n\nArtifacts\, Illusion\, and the Speculative mediate the exchange between Thede Ambrose and Kate Donoghue’s practices.\n\nReferencing both personal and found documentary and advertisement imagery\, Donoghue investigates the vacuous and hauntingly banal underbelly of commercial aspirations\, constructing paintings that collapse expectations of consumerism into innate and corrupted desires.\n\nAmbrose navigates mediated violence\, spirituality\, and the abject\, manifesting in perverse articulations of belief and reality. Imagistic sculpture and installation are generated through an expansive material interest\, and an extensive archive of found imagery.\n\n“You Next” presents the collisions of these practices. Cautionary tales\, dreams\, and fantasies of objectification come to a head in this collaboration between the two artists.\n\nGallery Hours: Tuesday - Friday\, Noon-6pm and Sunday Noon-6 pm
UID:148455-21904324@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/148455
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Duderstadt Center - Gallery 1019
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260421T085257
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260625T090000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260625T170000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Debbie Thompson Exhibition
DESCRIPTION:Debbie Thompson works predominantly in clay and draws inspiration from the natural world\, which she frequently references in her work. Her interest in ceramics began in high school when she took classes at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills\, Michigan. She later pursued her passion at the University of Michigan School of Art and Design\, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts. She also holds a Master of Arts from Eastern Michigan University and has completed post-graduate studio coursework at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago\, Maryland Institute College of Art\, Rhode Island School of Design\, and Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts.\n\nThompson taught visual art in the Ann Arbor Public Schools for 34 years and has also taught at the University of Michigan School of Education and Washtenaw Community College. She exhibits her work both locally and nationally and was a member of the Clay Gallery. She continues her practice in her home studio and at the Potters Guild in Ann Arbor\, Michigan. She is a member of the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts and the Michigan Ceramic Art Association. Her work is included in the permanent collection of the International Dinnerware Museum.\n\nThompson’s work has been inspired by the natural world since childhood. Although she initially studied biology in college\, she later shifted her focus to visual art. The textures\, colors\, and forms in her pieces are drawn directly from nature.\nSeeds—structures that have enabled plants to move through space and time for over 600 million years—are central to her recent work. They are vital to the continuation of plant life\, and therefore to human survival.\n\nIn this exhibition\, Thompson explores the unseen structures of seeds as revealed through electron microscopy. These images highlight the intricate beauty and ingenuity of nature\, which she interprets through her wall-mounted ceramic sculptures.\n\nAt a time when our planet and its ecosystems face increasing threats\, Thompson’s work serves as a reminder of the importance of preserving the natural world. Recognizing the beauty and significance of these often-unseen forms is a crucial first step toward protecting the life systems on which we all depend.
UID:147884-21902258@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/147884
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:North Campus Research Complex Building 18 - Connection Gallery
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260511T181505
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260625T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260625T190000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Fore-Site (Phase 2): The Stamps Gallery Pillar Project
DESCRIPTION:\n\nFrom September 2025 through November 2026\, Stamps Gallery is partnering in a curatorial collaboration with two Ypsilanti-based\, artist-run project spaces led by Stamps alumni: C.Y.N.K. Studios\, directed by Sally Clegg (Lecturer III and Student Exhibition Coordinator\, MFA ’20) and Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20)\; and Sometimes Space\, directed by Nathan Byrne (Lecturer I\, MFA ’21). Each space hosts dozens of artists annually for exhibitions\, performances\, and events\, fostering experimental work and building community. For this project\, Byrne\, Clegg\, and Narula have been commissioned to reimagine the pillars on Division Street that flank the gallery. In response\, they’ve curated six artists to create new work for the pillars over three cycles:\n\nPhase 1 (September 12 - December 12) artists: Amelia Burns (Cranbrook MFA ’23) and Erin McKenna (MFA ’20)\nPhase 2 (January 12 - August 12) artists: Sally Clegg (MFA ’20) and Kim Karlsrud (MFA ’20)\nPhase 3 (September 12 - November 12) artists: Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20) and Nathan Byrne (MFA ’21)\nPhase 2 Curatorial Statement\n\nCurated by Sometimes Space: Sally Clegg (entry pillar)\nCurated by CYNK Studios: Kim Karlsrud (courtyard pillar)\n\nArtists Sally Clegg and Kim Karlsrud wrap the Division Street pillars in highly site-specific ornament unearthed from the overlooked margins of Ann Arbor. On the Courtyard pillar\, Karlsrud scales up photographs of objects found in liminal spaces surrounding campus buildings on Green Road\, which the artist has encrusted in road salt. On the entryway pillar\, Clegg zooms in on tiny fragments of found material from UMich’s famous “rock” to celebrate nearly seven decades of student art and activism. Both artists uplift aggregate of local human activity to reveal tiny worlds of found form. \n\nSally Clegg: Sentimentary Rock\nSentimentary Rock is a composition of paint slag collected from the UMich rock monument at the corner of Washtenaw Avenue and Hill Street. This colorful composite material has been accumulating at the base of the iconic limestone boulder since the mid 1950’s\, when students began a tradition of painting it in acts of protest\, creativity\, and ritual\, sometimes multiple times per week. Akin to byproducts of industry such as “Fordite” (collectable chunks of automotive overspray sometimes called ‘Detroit agate’)\, Sentimentary Rock includes thousands of layers\, each dripped from a palimpsestic public proclamation. When processed\, sculpted\, sealed\, assembled\, and macro-photographed\, the result is this enlarged array of tiny gems\, intended to celebrate the indissoluble student voice. \n\nKim Karlsrud: What Amasses\nWhat Amasses is an assemblage of everyday found objects collected within the Miller Creek watershed\, an urbanized drainage system that encompasses much of the city of Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan campus. Selected objects were immersed in a road salt solution\, allowing delicate crystalline formations to emerge. Road salt is a common material input into these hydrological networks during the winter months and exists in multiple states of refinement\, expression\, coherence\, and fragmentation. Each object was then arranged\, photographed\, and enlarged to recontextualize these materials in ways that invite deeper reflections on how infrastructure and human agency blur notions of the natural and the artificial. \nArtist Statements/Bios\n\nSally Clegg \nSally Clegg is an artist and educator from Pelham\, Massachusetts. Her studio practice is rooted in sculpture and expanded printmaking\, stemming from a fascination with human efforts to make meaning from our relationships to objects. Clegg integrates history\, popular culture\, literature and philosophy as material for artmaking\, leveraging personal anecdote and humor to reveal the complexity\, absurdity\, and theoretical richness at play in our connections to things and to ourselves. \n\nClegg holds an MFA in Art from The University of Michigan Stamps School of Art & Design\, and a BA in Art & English from Goucher College. She has exhibited nationally and internationally\, and her work can be found in permanent collections at Yale University\, The New York Public Library\, and elsewhere. Her artwork and writing has appeared in ASAP/Journal\, BOMB Magazine\, Sculpture Magazine\, and Hyperallergic. She is a lecturer in Art & Design at the University of Michigan. Website / Instagram\n\n\nKim Karlsrud \nKim Karlsrud is the co-founder of Commonstudio\, a collaborative creative practice that develops socio-ecological and spatial interventions\, installations\, and initiatives working with and within urban landscapes. Her work explores the space between art and design\, and is grounded in the concept of the “commons\,” that which is shared\, as well as that which is ordinary\, banal\, and commonplace.\n\nKarlsrud completed her undergraduate degree in Product Design from Otis College of Art and Design and an MFA in Art from the University of Michigan. She is currently an Assistant Visiting Professor in the College of Design at the University of Oregon\, teaching across Art and Landscape Architecture departments. She jointly received the 2014-15 Prince Charitable Trust Rome Prize in Landscape Architecture\, was a 2017 resident at the Headlands Center for the Arts\, and is the 2025-26 Fuller Fieldscape Fellow. Website / Instagram
UID:138032-21903396@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/138032
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20250828T001529
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260625T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260625T190000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Fore-Site (Phase 3): The Stamps Gallery Pillar Project
DESCRIPTION:From September 2025 through August 2026\, Stamps Gallery is partnering in a curatorial collaboration with two Ypsilanti-based\, artist-run project spaces led by Stamps alumni: C.Y.N.K. Studios\, directed by Sally Clegg (Lecturer III and Student Exhibition Coordinator\, MFA ’20) and Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20)\; and Sometimes Space\, directed by Nathan Byrne (Lecturer I\, MFA ’21). Each space hosts dozens of artists annually for exhibitions\, performances\, and events\, fostering experimental work and building community. For this project\, Byrne\, Clegg\, and Narula have been commissioned to reimagine the pillars on Division Street that flank the gallery. In response\, they've curated six artists to create new work for the pillars over three cycles:\nPhase 1 (September 12 - December 12) artists: Amelia Burns (Cranbrook MFA '23) and Erin McKenna (MFA '20)Phase 2 (January 12 - April 12) artists: Sally Clegg (MFA '20) and Kim Karlsrud (MFA '20)Phase 3 (May 12 - August 12) artists: Abhishek Narula (MFA '20) and Nathan Byrne (MFA '21)\nPhase 3 \nCurated by Sometimes Space: Abhishek Narula (entry pillar)Curated by CYNK Studios: Nathan Byrne (courtyard pillar)
UID:138033-21881352@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/138033
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260608T121512
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260625T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260625T170000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Marianetta Porter: Breath\, Fragment\, Return
DESCRIPTION:\n\nCurated by Juana Williams\, this exhibition examines how Marianetta Porter uses everyday objects\, fragments\, and embodied memory to make absence an active\, living presence while challenging linear histories. Rooted in African American experience\, her practice treats what is discarded\, overlooked\, or missing not as loss\, but as a source of meaning that continues to act on the present. Through her process and materials\, Porter reveals how memory is carried in the body and embedded in ordinary things. Her work also resists forward-moving notions of time\, instead presenting a diasporic temporality in which past\, present\, and lived experience circulate together through repetition\, touch\, and recall. In doing so\, Porter proposes a vision of history as unfinished\, memory as active\, and absence as a force that sustains connection and shapes the present. \n\nMarianetta Porter is a visual artist and product designer whose research and creative practice are grounded in the study of African American history\, culture\, and representation. Through the language of visual art\, she draws connections between historic memory and contemporary African American life\, giving voice to the history of the African diaspora while acknowledging its central influence on the birth and flourishing of American culture.\n\nHer work has been exhibited nationally at institutions such as the Indianapolis Museum of Art\, the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry\, the Spoleto Festival\, the Harriet Tubman Museum\, and the Hampton University Museum of Art.\n\nShe earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts from Hampton University and her Master of Fine Arts from the University of Michigan. The recipient of numerous awards\, Porter is Professor Emeritus at the University of Michigan’s Stamps School of Art and Design.\n\nJuana Williams is a curator and writer whose work explores the intersections of cross-border intellectual history\, cultural memory\, and identity formation as expressed through modern and contemporary art from Africa and its diasporas.\n\nWilliams has held curatorial and academic appointments at organizations including the Detroit Institute of Arts\, Library Street Collective\, Wayne State University\, and the Urban Institute for Contemporary Art. Her curatorial projects have been presented at institutions across the United States and France\, including the Grand Rapids Art Museum\, the Muskegon Museum of Art\, Palais de Tokyo (Paris)\, and the Westmoreland Museum of American Art. In addition\, she has presented lectures at various museums and universities and contributed to numerous exhibition catalogs. Her work has been written about in publications such as Artsy\, Beaux Arts Magazine\, Condé Nast Traveller\, Michigan Chronicle\, and Observer. Williams holds a BA in Fine Art and an MA in Art History from Wayne State University.
UID:147625-21901383@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/147625
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260528T143201
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260625T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260625T180000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:You Next
DESCRIPTION:The University of Michigan Duderstadt Center Gallery presents “You Next”\, a duo exhibition by Thede Ambrose and Kate Donoghue\, curated by Nathan Byrne.\n\nOpening: Friday\, May 29th 6-9pm\nClosing: Sunday\, June 28th 2-5pm\n\nArtifacts\, Illusion\, and the Speculative mediate the exchange between Thede Ambrose and Kate Donoghue’s practices.\n\nReferencing both personal and found documentary and advertisement imagery\, Donoghue investigates the vacuous and hauntingly banal underbelly of commercial aspirations\, constructing paintings that collapse expectations of consumerism into innate and corrupted desires.\n\nAmbrose navigates mediated violence\, spirituality\, and the abject\, manifesting in perverse articulations of belief and reality. Imagistic sculpture and installation are generated through an expansive material interest\, and an extensive archive of found imagery.\n\n“You Next” presents the collisions of these practices. Cautionary tales\, dreams\, and fantasies of objectification come to a head in this collaboration between the two artists.\n\nGallery Hours: Tuesday - Friday\, Noon-6pm and Sunday Noon-6 pm
UID:148455-21904325@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/148455
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Duderstadt Center - Gallery 1019
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260518T121510
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260625T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260625T190000
SUMMARY:Lecture / Discussion:Artist & Curator Conversation - Absence as Presence: Memory\, Material\, and Time in the Work of Marianetta Porter
DESCRIPTION:\n\nJoin us for an intimate conversation between prolific artist\, designer\, and educator Marianetta Porter and guest curator Juana Williams. Together\, they will discuss how Porter transforms the overlooked\, discarded\, and/or ephemeral into vessels of memory\, meaning\, and connection. Drawing from African American histories and experiences\, Porter’s work invites us to reconsider absence—not as a void\, but as an active force that shapes how we inhabit the present. Through everyday objects such as tea towels\, ironing boards\, church fans\, paper fragments\, and found materials\, she illuminates how memory resides in the body and in ordinary things\, making visible the traces of lives and experiences that might otherwise be erased. A brief audience Q&A will close this presentation. \n\nLimited space available\, reservations are requested. Register here.\n
UID:148323-21903925@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/148323
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260421T085257
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260626T090000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260626T170000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Debbie Thompson Exhibition
DESCRIPTION:Debbie Thompson works predominantly in clay and draws inspiration from the natural world\, which she frequently references in her work. Her interest in ceramics began in high school when she took classes at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills\, Michigan. She later pursued her passion at the University of Michigan School of Art and Design\, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts. She also holds a Master of Arts from Eastern Michigan University and has completed post-graduate studio coursework at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago\, Maryland Institute College of Art\, Rhode Island School of Design\, and Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts.\n\nThompson taught visual art in the Ann Arbor Public Schools for 34 years and has also taught at the University of Michigan School of Education and Washtenaw Community College. She exhibits her work both locally and nationally and was a member of the Clay Gallery. She continues her practice in her home studio and at the Potters Guild in Ann Arbor\, Michigan. She is a member of the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts and the Michigan Ceramic Art Association. Her work is included in the permanent collection of the International Dinnerware Museum.\n\nThompson’s work has been inspired by the natural world since childhood. Although she initially studied biology in college\, she later shifted her focus to visual art. The textures\, colors\, and forms in her pieces are drawn directly from nature.\nSeeds—structures that have enabled plants to move through space and time for over 600 million years—are central to her recent work. They are vital to the continuation of plant life\, and therefore to human survival.\n\nIn this exhibition\, Thompson explores the unseen structures of seeds as revealed through electron microscopy. These images highlight the intricate beauty and ingenuity of nature\, which she interprets through her wall-mounted ceramic sculptures.\n\nAt a time when our planet and its ecosystems face increasing threats\, Thompson’s work serves as a reminder of the importance of preserving the natural world. Recognizing the beauty and significance of these often-unseen forms is a crucial first step toward protecting the life systems on which we all depend.
UID:147884-21902259@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/147884
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:North Campus Research Complex Building 18 - Connection Gallery
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260511T181505
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260626T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260626T190000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Fore-Site (Phase 2): The Stamps Gallery Pillar Project
DESCRIPTION:\n\nFrom September 2025 through November 2026\, Stamps Gallery is partnering in a curatorial collaboration with two Ypsilanti-based\, artist-run project spaces led by Stamps alumni: C.Y.N.K. Studios\, directed by Sally Clegg (Lecturer III and Student Exhibition Coordinator\, MFA ’20) and Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20)\; and Sometimes Space\, directed by Nathan Byrne (Lecturer I\, MFA ’21). Each space hosts dozens of artists annually for exhibitions\, performances\, and events\, fostering experimental work and building community. For this project\, Byrne\, Clegg\, and Narula have been commissioned to reimagine the pillars on Division Street that flank the gallery. In response\, they’ve curated six artists to create new work for the pillars over three cycles:\n\nPhase 1 (September 12 - December 12) artists: Amelia Burns (Cranbrook MFA ’23) and Erin McKenna (MFA ’20)\nPhase 2 (January 12 - August 12) artists: Sally Clegg (MFA ’20) and Kim Karlsrud (MFA ’20)\nPhase 3 (September 12 - November 12) artists: Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20) and Nathan Byrne (MFA ’21)\nPhase 2 Curatorial Statement\n\nCurated by Sometimes Space: Sally Clegg (entry pillar)\nCurated by CYNK Studios: Kim Karlsrud (courtyard pillar)\n\nArtists Sally Clegg and Kim Karlsrud wrap the Division Street pillars in highly site-specific ornament unearthed from the overlooked margins of Ann Arbor. On the Courtyard pillar\, Karlsrud scales up photographs of objects found in liminal spaces surrounding campus buildings on Green Road\, which the artist has encrusted in road salt. On the entryway pillar\, Clegg zooms in on tiny fragments of found material from UMich’s famous “rock” to celebrate nearly seven decades of student art and activism. Both artists uplift aggregate of local human activity to reveal tiny worlds of found form. \n\nSally Clegg: Sentimentary Rock\nSentimentary Rock is a composition of paint slag collected from the UMich rock monument at the corner of Washtenaw Avenue and Hill Street. This colorful composite material has been accumulating at the base of the iconic limestone boulder since the mid 1950’s\, when students began a tradition of painting it in acts of protest\, creativity\, and ritual\, sometimes multiple times per week. Akin to byproducts of industry such as “Fordite” (collectable chunks of automotive overspray sometimes called ‘Detroit agate’)\, Sentimentary Rock includes thousands of layers\, each dripped from a palimpsestic public proclamation. When processed\, sculpted\, sealed\, assembled\, and macro-photographed\, the result is this enlarged array of tiny gems\, intended to celebrate the indissoluble student voice. \n\nKim Karlsrud: What Amasses\nWhat Amasses is an assemblage of everyday found objects collected within the Miller Creek watershed\, an urbanized drainage system that encompasses much of the city of Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan campus. Selected objects were immersed in a road salt solution\, allowing delicate crystalline formations to emerge. Road salt is a common material input into these hydrological networks during the winter months and exists in multiple states of refinement\, expression\, coherence\, and fragmentation. Each object was then arranged\, photographed\, and enlarged to recontextualize these materials in ways that invite deeper reflections on how infrastructure and human agency blur notions of the natural and the artificial. \nArtist Statements/Bios\n\nSally Clegg \nSally Clegg is an artist and educator from Pelham\, Massachusetts. Her studio practice is rooted in sculpture and expanded printmaking\, stemming from a fascination with human efforts to make meaning from our relationships to objects. Clegg integrates history\, popular culture\, literature and philosophy as material for artmaking\, leveraging personal anecdote and humor to reveal the complexity\, absurdity\, and theoretical richness at play in our connections to things and to ourselves. \n\nClegg holds an MFA in Art from The University of Michigan Stamps School of Art & Design\, and a BA in Art & English from Goucher College. She has exhibited nationally and internationally\, and her work can be found in permanent collections at Yale University\, The New York Public Library\, and elsewhere. Her artwork and writing has appeared in ASAP/Journal\, BOMB Magazine\, Sculpture Magazine\, and Hyperallergic. She is a lecturer in Art & Design at the University of Michigan. Website / Instagram\n\n\nKim Karlsrud \nKim Karlsrud is the co-founder of Commonstudio\, a collaborative creative practice that develops socio-ecological and spatial interventions\, installations\, and initiatives working with and within urban landscapes. Her work explores the space between art and design\, and is grounded in the concept of the “commons\,” that which is shared\, as well as that which is ordinary\, banal\, and commonplace.\n\nKarlsrud completed her undergraduate degree in Product Design from Otis College of Art and Design and an MFA in Art from the University of Michigan. She is currently an Assistant Visiting Professor in the College of Design at the University of Oregon\, teaching across Art and Landscape Architecture departments. She jointly received the 2014-15 Prince Charitable Trust Rome Prize in Landscape Architecture\, was a 2017 resident at the Headlands Center for the Arts\, and is the 2025-26 Fuller Fieldscape Fellow. Website / Instagram
UID:138032-21903397@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/138032
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20250828T001529
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260626T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260626T190000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Fore-Site (Phase 3): The Stamps Gallery Pillar Project
DESCRIPTION:From September 2025 through August 2026\, Stamps Gallery is partnering in a curatorial collaboration with two Ypsilanti-based\, artist-run project spaces led by Stamps alumni: C.Y.N.K. Studios\, directed by Sally Clegg (Lecturer III and Student Exhibition Coordinator\, MFA ’20) and Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20)\; and Sometimes Space\, directed by Nathan Byrne (Lecturer I\, MFA ’21). Each space hosts dozens of artists annually for exhibitions\, performances\, and events\, fostering experimental work and building community. For this project\, Byrne\, Clegg\, and Narula have been commissioned to reimagine the pillars on Division Street that flank the gallery. In response\, they've curated six artists to create new work for the pillars over three cycles:\nPhase 1 (September 12 - December 12) artists: Amelia Burns (Cranbrook MFA '23) and Erin McKenna (MFA '20)Phase 2 (January 12 - April 12) artists: Sally Clegg (MFA '20) and Kim Karlsrud (MFA '20)Phase 3 (May 12 - August 12) artists: Abhishek Narula (MFA '20) and Nathan Byrne (MFA '21)\nPhase 3 \nCurated by Sometimes Space: Abhishek Narula (entry pillar)Curated by CYNK Studios: Nathan Byrne (courtyard pillar)
UID:138033-21881353@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/138033
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260608T121512
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260626T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260626T170000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Marianetta Porter: Breath\, Fragment\, Return
DESCRIPTION:\n\nCurated by Juana Williams\, this exhibition examines how Marianetta Porter uses everyday objects\, fragments\, and embodied memory to make absence an active\, living presence while challenging linear histories. Rooted in African American experience\, her practice treats what is discarded\, overlooked\, or missing not as loss\, but as a source of meaning that continues to act on the present. Through her process and materials\, Porter reveals how memory is carried in the body and embedded in ordinary things. Her work also resists forward-moving notions of time\, instead presenting a diasporic temporality in which past\, present\, and lived experience circulate together through repetition\, touch\, and recall. In doing so\, Porter proposes a vision of history as unfinished\, memory as active\, and absence as a force that sustains connection and shapes the present. \n\nMarianetta Porter is a visual artist and product designer whose research and creative practice are grounded in the study of African American history\, culture\, and representation. Through the language of visual art\, she draws connections between historic memory and contemporary African American life\, giving voice to the history of the African diaspora while acknowledging its central influence on the birth and flourishing of American culture.\n\nHer work has been exhibited nationally at institutions such as the Indianapolis Museum of Art\, the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry\, the Spoleto Festival\, the Harriet Tubman Museum\, and the Hampton University Museum of Art.\n\nShe earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts from Hampton University and her Master of Fine Arts from the University of Michigan. The recipient of numerous awards\, Porter is Professor Emeritus at the University of Michigan’s Stamps School of Art and Design.\n\nJuana Williams is a curator and writer whose work explores the intersections of cross-border intellectual history\, cultural memory\, and identity formation as expressed through modern and contemporary art from Africa and its diasporas.\n\nWilliams has held curatorial and academic appointments at organizations including the Detroit Institute of Arts\, Library Street Collective\, Wayne State University\, and the Urban Institute for Contemporary Art. Her curatorial projects have been presented at institutions across the United States and France\, including the Grand Rapids Art Museum\, the Muskegon Museum of Art\, Palais de Tokyo (Paris)\, and the Westmoreland Museum of American Art. In addition\, she has presented lectures at various museums and universities and contributed to numerous exhibition catalogs. Her work has been written about in publications such as Artsy\, Beaux Arts Magazine\, Condé Nast Traveller\, Michigan Chronicle\, and Observer. Williams holds a BA in Fine Art and an MA in Art History from Wayne State University.
UID:147625-21901384@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/147625
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260528T143201
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260626T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260626T180000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:You Next
DESCRIPTION:The University of Michigan Duderstadt Center Gallery presents “You Next”\, a duo exhibition by Thede Ambrose and Kate Donoghue\, curated by Nathan Byrne.\n\nOpening: Friday\, May 29th 6-9pm\nClosing: Sunday\, June 28th 2-5pm\n\nArtifacts\, Illusion\, and the Speculative mediate the exchange between Thede Ambrose and Kate Donoghue’s practices.\n\nReferencing both personal and found documentary and advertisement imagery\, Donoghue investigates the vacuous and hauntingly banal underbelly of commercial aspirations\, constructing paintings that collapse expectations of consumerism into innate and corrupted desires.\n\nAmbrose navigates mediated violence\, spirituality\, and the abject\, manifesting in perverse articulations of belief and reality. Imagistic sculpture and installation are generated through an expansive material interest\, and an extensive archive of found imagery.\n\n“You Next” presents the collisions of these practices. Cautionary tales\, dreams\, and fantasies of objectification come to a head in this collaboration between the two artists.\n\nGallery Hours: Tuesday - Friday\, Noon-6pm and Sunday Noon-6 pm
UID:148455-21904326@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/148455
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Duderstadt Center - Gallery 1019
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260518T121511
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260626T140000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260626T160000
SUMMARY:Workshop / Seminar:Summer Drop-in Artmaking
DESCRIPTION:\n\nStop by the gallery to participate in a hands-on printmaking activity inspired by the work in Marianetta Porter: Breath\, Fragment\, Return. Explore the exhibition more with interactive gallery guides.\n\nSummer Drop-in Artmaking events take place from 2-4 p.m. on the following Fridays in Summer 2026: June 12\, June 26\, July 10\, and July 24. Free and open to the public\, no experience necessary\, all supplies provided.\n\n
UID:148324-21903926@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/148324
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260511T181505
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260627T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260627T190000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Fore-Site (Phase 2): The Stamps Gallery Pillar Project
DESCRIPTION:\n\nFrom September 2025 through November 2026\, Stamps Gallery is partnering in a curatorial collaboration with two Ypsilanti-based\, artist-run project spaces led by Stamps alumni: C.Y.N.K. Studios\, directed by Sally Clegg (Lecturer III and Student Exhibition Coordinator\, MFA ’20) and Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20)\; and Sometimes Space\, directed by Nathan Byrne (Lecturer I\, MFA ’21). Each space hosts dozens of artists annually for exhibitions\, performances\, and events\, fostering experimental work and building community. For this project\, Byrne\, Clegg\, and Narula have been commissioned to reimagine the pillars on Division Street that flank the gallery. In response\, they’ve curated six artists to create new work for the pillars over three cycles:\n\nPhase 1 (September 12 - December 12) artists: Amelia Burns (Cranbrook MFA ’23) and Erin McKenna (MFA ’20)\nPhase 2 (January 12 - August 12) artists: Sally Clegg (MFA ’20) and Kim Karlsrud (MFA ’20)\nPhase 3 (September 12 - November 12) artists: Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20) and Nathan Byrne (MFA ’21)\nPhase 2 Curatorial Statement\n\nCurated by Sometimes Space: Sally Clegg (entry pillar)\nCurated by CYNK Studios: Kim Karlsrud (courtyard pillar)\n\nArtists Sally Clegg and Kim Karlsrud wrap the Division Street pillars in highly site-specific ornament unearthed from the overlooked margins of Ann Arbor. On the Courtyard pillar\, Karlsrud scales up photographs of objects found in liminal spaces surrounding campus buildings on Green Road\, which the artist has encrusted in road salt. On the entryway pillar\, Clegg zooms in on tiny fragments of found material from UMich’s famous “rock” to celebrate nearly seven decades of student art and activism. Both artists uplift aggregate of local human activity to reveal tiny worlds of found form. \n\nSally Clegg: Sentimentary Rock\nSentimentary Rock is a composition of paint slag collected from the UMich rock monument at the corner of Washtenaw Avenue and Hill Street. This colorful composite material has been accumulating at the base of the iconic limestone boulder since the mid 1950’s\, when students began a tradition of painting it in acts of protest\, creativity\, and ritual\, sometimes multiple times per week. Akin to byproducts of industry such as “Fordite” (collectable chunks of automotive overspray sometimes called ‘Detroit agate’)\, Sentimentary Rock includes thousands of layers\, each dripped from a palimpsestic public proclamation. When processed\, sculpted\, sealed\, assembled\, and macro-photographed\, the result is this enlarged array of tiny gems\, intended to celebrate the indissoluble student voice. \n\nKim Karlsrud: What Amasses\nWhat Amasses is an assemblage of everyday found objects collected within the Miller Creek watershed\, an urbanized drainage system that encompasses much of the city of Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan campus. Selected objects were immersed in a road salt solution\, allowing delicate crystalline formations to emerge. Road salt is a common material input into these hydrological networks during the winter months and exists in multiple states of refinement\, expression\, coherence\, and fragmentation. Each object was then arranged\, photographed\, and enlarged to recontextualize these materials in ways that invite deeper reflections on how infrastructure and human agency blur notions of the natural and the artificial. \nArtist Statements/Bios\n\nSally Clegg \nSally Clegg is an artist and educator from Pelham\, Massachusetts. Her studio practice is rooted in sculpture and expanded printmaking\, stemming from a fascination with human efforts to make meaning from our relationships to objects. Clegg integrates history\, popular culture\, literature and philosophy as material for artmaking\, leveraging personal anecdote and humor to reveal the complexity\, absurdity\, and theoretical richness at play in our connections to things and to ourselves. \n\nClegg holds an MFA in Art from The University of Michigan Stamps School of Art & Design\, and a BA in Art & English from Goucher College. She has exhibited nationally and internationally\, and her work can be found in permanent collections at Yale University\, The New York Public Library\, and elsewhere. Her artwork and writing has appeared in ASAP/Journal\, BOMB Magazine\, Sculpture Magazine\, and Hyperallergic. She is a lecturer in Art & Design at the University of Michigan. Website / Instagram\n\n\nKim Karlsrud \nKim Karlsrud is the co-founder of Commonstudio\, a collaborative creative practice that develops socio-ecological and spatial interventions\, installations\, and initiatives working with and within urban landscapes. Her work explores the space between art and design\, and is grounded in the concept of the “commons\,” that which is shared\, as well as that which is ordinary\, banal\, and commonplace.\n\nKarlsrud completed her undergraduate degree in Product Design from Otis College of Art and Design and an MFA in Art from the University of Michigan. She is currently an Assistant Visiting Professor in the College of Design at the University of Oregon\, teaching across Art and Landscape Architecture departments. She jointly received the 2014-15 Prince Charitable Trust Rome Prize in Landscape Architecture\, was a 2017 resident at the Headlands Center for the Arts\, and is the 2025-26 Fuller Fieldscape Fellow. Website / Instagram
UID:138032-21903398@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/138032
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20250828T001529
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260627T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260627T190000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Fore-Site (Phase 3): The Stamps Gallery Pillar Project
DESCRIPTION:From September 2025 through August 2026\, Stamps Gallery is partnering in a curatorial collaboration with two Ypsilanti-based\, artist-run project spaces led by Stamps alumni: C.Y.N.K. Studios\, directed by Sally Clegg (Lecturer III and Student Exhibition Coordinator\, MFA ’20) and Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20)\; and Sometimes Space\, directed by Nathan Byrne (Lecturer I\, MFA ’21). Each space hosts dozens of artists annually for exhibitions\, performances\, and events\, fostering experimental work and building community. For this project\, Byrne\, Clegg\, and Narula have been commissioned to reimagine the pillars on Division Street that flank the gallery. In response\, they've curated six artists to create new work for the pillars over three cycles:\nPhase 1 (September 12 - December 12) artists: Amelia Burns (Cranbrook MFA '23) and Erin McKenna (MFA '20)Phase 2 (January 12 - April 12) artists: Sally Clegg (MFA '20) and Kim Karlsrud (MFA '20)Phase 3 (May 12 - August 12) artists: Abhishek Narula (MFA '20) and Nathan Byrne (MFA '21)\nPhase 3 \nCurated by Sometimes Space: Abhishek Narula (entry pillar)Curated by CYNK Studios: Nathan Byrne (courtyard pillar)
UID:138033-21881354@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/138033
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260608T121512
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260627T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260627T170000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Marianetta Porter: Breath\, Fragment\, Return
DESCRIPTION:\n\nCurated by Juana Williams\, this exhibition examines how Marianetta Porter uses everyday objects\, fragments\, and embodied memory to make absence an active\, living presence while challenging linear histories. Rooted in African American experience\, her practice treats what is discarded\, overlooked\, or missing not as loss\, but as a source of meaning that continues to act on the present. Through her process and materials\, Porter reveals how memory is carried in the body and embedded in ordinary things. Her work also resists forward-moving notions of time\, instead presenting a diasporic temporality in which past\, present\, and lived experience circulate together through repetition\, touch\, and recall. In doing so\, Porter proposes a vision of history as unfinished\, memory as active\, and absence as a force that sustains connection and shapes the present. \n\nMarianetta Porter is a visual artist and product designer whose research and creative practice are grounded in the study of African American history\, culture\, and representation. Through the language of visual art\, she draws connections between historic memory and contemporary African American life\, giving voice to the history of the African diaspora while acknowledging its central influence on the birth and flourishing of American culture.\n\nHer work has been exhibited nationally at institutions such as the Indianapolis Museum of Art\, the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry\, the Spoleto Festival\, the Harriet Tubman Museum\, and the Hampton University Museum of Art.\n\nShe earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts from Hampton University and her Master of Fine Arts from the University of Michigan. The recipient of numerous awards\, Porter is Professor Emeritus at the University of Michigan’s Stamps School of Art and Design.\n\nJuana Williams is a curator and writer whose work explores the intersections of cross-border intellectual history\, cultural memory\, and identity formation as expressed through modern and contemporary art from Africa and its diasporas.\n\nWilliams has held curatorial and academic appointments at organizations including the Detroit Institute of Arts\, Library Street Collective\, Wayne State University\, and the Urban Institute for Contemporary Art. Her curatorial projects have been presented at institutions across the United States and France\, including the Grand Rapids Art Museum\, the Muskegon Museum of Art\, Palais de Tokyo (Paris)\, and the Westmoreland Museum of American Art. In addition\, she has presented lectures at various museums and universities and contributed to numerous exhibition catalogs. Her work has been written about in publications such as Artsy\, Beaux Arts Magazine\, Condé Nast Traveller\, Michigan Chronicle\, and Observer. Williams holds a BA in Fine Art and an MA in Art History from Wayne State University.
UID:147625-21901385@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/147625
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260518T121512
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260627T170000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260627T200000
SUMMARY:Workshop / Seminar:My Memories\, My Story: Printmaking Activity at Ann Arbor Top of the Park Festival
DESCRIPTION:\n\nIn celebration of the summer 2026 exhibition Marianetta Porter: Breath\, Fragment\, Return\, The Book Arts Studio at the University of Michigan Library\, Stamps Gallery\, and The Arts Initiative invites you to make a unique work of printed art and to explore the library’s collection of wood type\, plus participate in other print-based activities at The Annex at the Top of the Park Festival.\n
UID:148325-21903927@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/148325
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260528T143201
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260628T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260628T180000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:You Next
DESCRIPTION:The University of Michigan Duderstadt Center Gallery presents “You Next”\, a duo exhibition by Thede Ambrose and Kate Donoghue\, curated by Nathan Byrne.\n\nOpening: Friday\, May 29th 6-9pm\nClosing: Sunday\, June 28th 2-5pm\n\nArtifacts\, Illusion\, and the Speculative mediate the exchange between Thede Ambrose and Kate Donoghue’s practices.\n\nReferencing both personal and found documentary and advertisement imagery\, Donoghue investigates the vacuous and hauntingly banal underbelly of commercial aspirations\, constructing paintings that collapse expectations of consumerism into innate and corrupted desires.\n\nAmbrose navigates mediated violence\, spirituality\, and the abject\, manifesting in perverse articulations of belief and reality. Imagistic sculpture and installation are generated through an expansive material interest\, and an extensive archive of found imagery.\n\n“You Next” presents the collisions of these practices. Cautionary tales\, dreams\, and fantasies of objectification come to a head in this collaboration between the two artists.\n\nGallery Hours: Tuesday - Friday\, Noon-6pm and Sunday Noon-6 pm
UID:148455-21904328@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/148455
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Duderstadt Center - Gallery 1019
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260421T085257
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260629T090000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260629T170000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Debbie Thompson Exhibition
DESCRIPTION:Debbie Thompson works predominantly in clay and draws inspiration from the natural world\, which she frequently references in her work. Her interest in ceramics began in high school when she took classes at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills\, Michigan. She later pursued her passion at the University of Michigan School of Art and Design\, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts. She also holds a Master of Arts from Eastern Michigan University and has completed post-graduate studio coursework at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago\, Maryland Institute College of Art\, Rhode Island School of Design\, and Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts.\n\nThompson taught visual art in the Ann Arbor Public Schools for 34 years and has also taught at the University of Michigan School of Education and Washtenaw Community College. She exhibits her work both locally and nationally and was a member of the Clay Gallery. She continues her practice in her home studio and at the Potters Guild in Ann Arbor\, Michigan. She is a member of the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts and the Michigan Ceramic Art Association. Her work is included in the permanent collection of the International Dinnerware Museum.\n\nThompson’s work has been inspired by the natural world since childhood. Although she initially studied biology in college\, she later shifted her focus to visual art. The textures\, colors\, and forms in her pieces are drawn directly from nature.\nSeeds—structures that have enabled plants to move through space and time for over 600 million years—are central to her recent work. They are vital to the continuation of plant life\, and therefore to human survival.\n\nIn this exhibition\, Thompson explores the unseen structures of seeds as revealed through electron microscopy. These images highlight the intricate beauty and ingenuity of nature\, which she interprets through her wall-mounted ceramic sculptures.\n\nAt a time when our planet and its ecosystems face increasing threats\, Thompson’s work serves as a reminder of the importance of preserving the natural world. Recognizing the beauty and significance of these often-unseen forms is a crucial first step toward protecting the life systems on which we all depend.
UID:147884-21902262@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/147884
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:North Campus Research Complex Building 18 - Connection Gallery
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260421T085257
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260630T090000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260630T170000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Debbie Thompson Exhibition
DESCRIPTION:Debbie Thompson works predominantly in clay and draws inspiration from the natural world\, which she frequently references in her work. Her interest in ceramics began in high school when she took classes at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills\, Michigan. She later pursued her passion at the University of Michigan School of Art and Design\, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts. She also holds a Master of Arts from Eastern Michigan University and has completed post-graduate studio coursework at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago\, Maryland Institute College of Art\, Rhode Island School of Design\, and Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts.\n\nThompson taught visual art in the Ann Arbor Public Schools for 34 years and has also taught at the University of Michigan School of Education and Washtenaw Community College. She exhibits her work both locally and nationally and was a member of the Clay Gallery. She continues her practice in her home studio and at the Potters Guild in Ann Arbor\, Michigan. She is a member of the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts and the Michigan Ceramic Art Association. Her work is included in the permanent collection of the International Dinnerware Museum.\n\nThompson’s work has been inspired by the natural world since childhood. Although she initially studied biology in college\, she later shifted her focus to visual art. The textures\, colors\, and forms in her pieces are drawn directly from nature.\nSeeds—structures that have enabled plants to move through space and time for over 600 million years—are central to her recent work. They are vital to the continuation of plant life\, and therefore to human survival.\n\nIn this exhibition\, Thompson explores the unseen structures of seeds as revealed through electron microscopy. These images highlight the intricate beauty and ingenuity of nature\, which she interprets through her wall-mounted ceramic sculptures.\n\nAt a time when our planet and its ecosystems face increasing threats\, Thompson’s work serves as a reminder of the importance of preserving the natural world. Recognizing the beauty and significance of these often-unseen forms is a crucial first step toward protecting the life systems on which we all depend.
UID:147884-21902263@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/147884
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:North Campus Research Complex Building 18 - Connection Gallery
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260421T085257
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260701T090000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260701T170000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Debbie Thompson Exhibition
DESCRIPTION:Debbie Thompson works predominantly in clay and draws inspiration from the natural world\, which she frequently references in her work. Her interest in ceramics began in high school when she took classes at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills\, Michigan. She later pursued her passion at the University of Michigan School of Art and Design\, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts. She also holds a Master of Arts from Eastern Michigan University and has completed post-graduate studio coursework at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago\, Maryland Institute College of Art\, Rhode Island School of Design\, and Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts.\n\nThompson taught visual art in the Ann Arbor Public Schools for 34 years and has also taught at the University of Michigan School of Education and Washtenaw Community College. She exhibits her work both locally and nationally and was a member of the Clay Gallery. She continues her practice in her home studio and at the Potters Guild in Ann Arbor\, Michigan. She is a member of the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts and the Michigan Ceramic Art Association. Her work is included in the permanent collection of the International Dinnerware Museum.\n\nThompson’s work has been inspired by the natural world since childhood. Although she initially studied biology in college\, she later shifted her focus to visual art. The textures\, colors\, and forms in her pieces are drawn directly from nature.\nSeeds—structures that have enabled plants to move through space and time for over 600 million years—are central to her recent work. They are vital to the continuation of plant life\, and therefore to human survival.\n\nIn this exhibition\, Thompson explores the unseen structures of seeds as revealed through electron microscopy. These images highlight the intricate beauty and ingenuity of nature\, which she interprets through her wall-mounted ceramic sculptures.\n\nAt a time when our planet and its ecosystems face increasing threats\, Thompson’s work serves as a reminder of the importance of preserving the natural world. Recognizing the beauty and significance of these often-unseen forms is a crucial first step toward protecting the life systems on which we all depend.
UID:147884-21902264@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/147884
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:North Campus Research Complex Building 18 - Connection Gallery
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260511T181505
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260701T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260701T190000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Fore-Site (Phase 2): The Stamps Gallery Pillar Project
DESCRIPTION:\n\nFrom September 2025 through November 2026\, Stamps Gallery is partnering in a curatorial collaboration with two Ypsilanti-based\, artist-run project spaces led by Stamps alumni: C.Y.N.K. Studios\, directed by Sally Clegg (Lecturer III and Student Exhibition Coordinator\, MFA ’20) and Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20)\; and Sometimes Space\, directed by Nathan Byrne (Lecturer I\, MFA ’21). Each space hosts dozens of artists annually for exhibitions\, performances\, and events\, fostering experimental work and building community. For this project\, Byrne\, Clegg\, and Narula have been commissioned to reimagine the pillars on Division Street that flank the gallery. In response\, they’ve curated six artists to create new work for the pillars over three cycles:\n\nPhase 1 (September 12 - December 12) artists: Amelia Burns (Cranbrook MFA ’23) and Erin McKenna (MFA ’20)\nPhase 2 (January 12 - August 12) artists: Sally Clegg (MFA ’20) and Kim Karlsrud (MFA ’20)\nPhase 3 (September 12 - November 12) artists: Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20) and Nathan Byrne (MFA ’21)\nPhase 2 Curatorial Statement\n\nCurated by Sometimes Space: Sally Clegg (entry pillar)\nCurated by CYNK Studios: Kim Karlsrud (courtyard pillar)\n\nArtists Sally Clegg and Kim Karlsrud wrap the Division Street pillars in highly site-specific ornament unearthed from the overlooked margins of Ann Arbor. On the Courtyard pillar\, Karlsrud scales up photographs of objects found in liminal spaces surrounding campus buildings on Green Road\, which the artist has encrusted in road salt. On the entryway pillar\, Clegg zooms in on tiny fragments of found material from UMich’s famous “rock” to celebrate nearly seven decades of student art and activism. Both artists uplift aggregate of local human activity to reveal tiny worlds of found form. \n\nSally Clegg: Sentimentary Rock\nSentimentary Rock is a composition of paint slag collected from the UMich rock monument at the corner of Washtenaw Avenue and Hill Street. This colorful composite material has been accumulating at the base of the iconic limestone boulder since the mid 1950’s\, when students began a tradition of painting it in acts of protest\, creativity\, and ritual\, sometimes multiple times per week. Akin to byproducts of industry such as “Fordite” (collectable chunks of automotive overspray sometimes called ‘Detroit agate’)\, Sentimentary Rock includes thousands of layers\, each dripped from a palimpsestic public proclamation. When processed\, sculpted\, sealed\, assembled\, and macro-photographed\, the result is this enlarged array of tiny gems\, intended to celebrate the indissoluble student voice. \n\nKim Karlsrud: What Amasses\nWhat Amasses is an assemblage of everyday found objects collected within the Miller Creek watershed\, an urbanized drainage system that encompasses much of the city of Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan campus. Selected objects were immersed in a road salt solution\, allowing delicate crystalline formations to emerge. Road salt is a common material input into these hydrological networks during the winter months and exists in multiple states of refinement\, expression\, coherence\, and fragmentation. Each object was then arranged\, photographed\, and enlarged to recontextualize these materials in ways that invite deeper reflections on how infrastructure and human agency blur notions of the natural and the artificial. \nArtist Statements/Bios\n\nSally Clegg \nSally Clegg is an artist and educator from Pelham\, Massachusetts. Her studio practice is rooted in sculpture and expanded printmaking\, stemming from a fascination with human efforts to make meaning from our relationships to objects. Clegg integrates history\, popular culture\, literature and philosophy as material for artmaking\, leveraging personal anecdote and humor to reveal the complexity\, absurdity\, and theoretical richness at play in our connections to things and to ourselves. \n\nClegg holds an MFA in Art from The University of Michigan Stamps School of Art & Design\, and a BA in Art & English from Goucher College. She has exhibited nationally and internationally\, and her work can be found in permanent collections at Yale University\, The New York Public Library\, and elsewhere. Her artwork and writing has appeared in ASAP/Journal\, BOMB Magazine\, Sculpture Magazine\, and Hyperallergic. She is a lecturer in Art & Design at the University of Michigan. Website / Instagram\n\n\nKim Karlsrud \nKim Karlsrud is the co-founder of Commonstudio\, a collaborative creative practice that develops socio-ecological and spatial interventions\, installations\, and initiatives working with and within urban landscapes. Her work explores the space between art and design\, and is grounded in the concept of the “commons\,” that which is shared\, as well as that which is ordinary\, banal\, and commonplace.\n\nKarlsrud completed her undergraduate degree in Product Design from Otis College of Art and Design and an MFA in Art from the University of Michigan. She is currently an Assistant Visiting Professor in the College of Design at the University of Oregon\, teaching across Art and Landscape Architecture departments. She jointly received the 2014-15 Prince Charitable Trust Rome Prize in Landscape Architecture\, was a 2017 resident at the Headlands Center for the Arts\, and is the 2025-26 Fuller Fieldscape Fellow. Website / Instagram
UID:138032-21903399@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/138032
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20250828T001529
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260701T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260701T190000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Fore-Site (Phase 3): The Stamps Gallery Pillar Project
DESCRIPTION:From September 2025 through August 2026\, Stamps Gallery is partnering in a curatorial collaboration with two Ypsilanti-based\, artist-run project spaces led by Stamps alumni: C.Y.N.K. Studios\, directed by Sally Clegg (Lecturer III and Student Exhibition Coordinator\, MFA ’20) and Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20)\; and Sometimes Space\, directed by Nathan Byrne (Lecturer I\, MFA ’21). Each space hosts dozens of artists annually for exhibitions\, performances\, and events\, fostering experimental work and building community. For this project\, Byrne\, Clegg\, and Narula have been commissioned to reimagine the pillars on Division Street that flank the gallery. In response\, they've curated six artists to create new work for the pillars over three cycles:\nPhase 1 (September 12 - December 12) artists: Amelia Burns (Cranbrook MFA '23) and Erin McKenna (MFA '20)Phase 2 (January 12 - April 12) artists: Sally Clegg (MFA '20) and Kim Karlsrud (MFA '20)Phase 3 (May 12 - August 12) artists: Abhishek Narula (MFA '20) and Nathan Byrne (MFA '21)\nPhase 3 \nCurated by Sometimes Space: Abhishek Narula (entry pillar)Curated by CYNK Studios: Nathan Byrne (courtyard pillar)
UID:138033-21881355@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/138033
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260608T121512
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260701T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260701T170000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Marianetta Porter: Breath\, Fragment\, Return
DESCRIPTION:\n\nCurated by Juana Williams\, this exhibition examines how Marianetta Porter uses everyday objects\, fragments\, and embodied memory to make absence an active\, living presence while challenging linear histories. Rooted in African American experience\, her practice treats what is discarded\, overlooked\, or missing not as loss\, but as a source of meaning that continues to act on the present. Through her process and materials\, Porter reveals how memory is carried in the body and embedded in ordinary things. Her work also resists forward-moving notions of time\, instead presenting a diasporic temporality in which past\, present\, and lived experience circulate together through repetition\, touch\, and recall. In doing so\, Porter proposes a vision of history as unfinished\, memory as active\, and absence as a force that sustains connection and shapes the present. \n\nMarianetta Porter is a visual artist and product designer whose research and creative practice are grounded in the study of African American history\, culture\, and representation. Through the language of visual art\, she draws connections between historic memory and contemporary African American life\, giving voice to the history of the African diaspora while acknowledging its central influence on the birth and flourishing of American culture.\n\nHer work has been exhibited nationally at institutions such as the Indianapolis Museum of Art\, the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry\, the Spoleto Festival\, the Harriet Tubman Museum\, and the Hampton University Museum of Art.\n\nShe earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts from Hampton University and her Master of Fine Arts from the University of Michigan. The recipient of numerous awards\, Porter is Professor Emeritus at the University of Michigan’s Stamps School of Art and Design.\n\nJuana Williams is a curator and writer whose work explores the intersections of cross-border intellectual history\, cultural memory\, and identity formation as expressed through modern and contemporary art from Africa and its diasporas.\n\nWilliams has held curatorial and academic appointments at organizations including the Detroit Institute of Arts\, Library Street Collective\, Wayne State University\, and the Urban Institute for Contemporary Art. Her curatorial projects have been presented at institutions across the United States and France\, including the Grand Rapids Art Museum\, the Muskegon Museum of Art\, Palais de Tokyo (Paris)\, and the Westmoreland Museum of American Art. In addition\, she has presented lectures at various museums and universities and contributed to numerous exhibition catalogs. Her work has been written about in publications such as Artsy\, Beaux Arts Magazine\, Condé Nast Traveller\, Michigan Chronicle\, and Observer. Williams holds a BA in Fine Art and an MA in Art History from Wayne State University.
UID:147625-21901386@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/147625
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260421T085257
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260702T090000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260702T170000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Debbie Thompson Exhibition
DESCRIPTION:Debbie Thompson works predominantly in clay and draws inspiration from the natural world\, which she frequently references in her work. Her interest in ceramics began in high school when she took classes at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills\, Michigan. She later pursued her passion at the University of Michigan School of Art and Design\, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts. She also holds a Master of Arts from Eastern Michigan University and has completed post-graduate studio coursework at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago\, Maryland Institute College of Art\, Rhode Island School of Design\, and Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts.\n\nThompson taught visual art in the Ann Arbor Public Schools for 34 years and has also taught at the University of Michigan School of Education and Washtenaw Community College. She exhibits her work both locally and nationally and was a member of the Clay Gallery. She continues her practice in her home studio and at the Potters Guild in Ann Arbor\, Michigan. She is a member of the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts and the Michigan Ceramic Art Association. Her work is included in the permanent collection of the International Dinnerware Museum.\n\nThompson’s work has been inspired by the natural world since childhood. Although she initially studied biology in college\, she later shifted her focus to visual art. The textures\, colors\, and forms in her pieces are drawn directly from nature.\nSeeds—structures that have enabled plants to move through space and time for over 600 million years—are central to her recent work. They are vital to the continuation of plant life\, and therefore to human survival.\n\nIn this exhibition\, Thompson explores the unseen structures of seeds as revealed through electron microscopy. These images highlight the intricate beauty and ingenuity of nature\, which she interprets through her wall-mounted ceramic sculptures.\n\nAt a time when our planet and its ecosystems face increasing threats\, Thompson’s work serves as a reminder of the importance of preserving the natural world. Recognizing the beauty and significance of these often-unseen forms is a crucial first step toward protecting the life systems on which we all depend.
UID:147884-21902265@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/147884
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:North Campus Research Complex Building 18 - Connection Gallery
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260511T181505
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260702T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260702T190000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Fore-Site (Phase 2): The Stamps Gallery Pillar Project
DESCRIPTION:\n\nFrom September 2025 through November 2026\, Stamps Gallery is partnering in a curatorial collaboration with two Ypsilanti-based\, artist-run project spaces led by Stamps alumni: C.Y.N.K. Studios\, directed by Sally Clegg (Lecturer III and Student Exhibition Coordinator\, MFA ’20) and Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20)\; and Sometimes Space\, directed by Nathan Byrne (Lecturer I\, MFA ’21). Each space hosts dozens of artists annually for exhibitions\, performances\, and events\, fostering experimental work and building community. For this project\, Byrne\, Clegg\, and Narula have been commissioned to reimagine the pillars on Division Street that flank the gallery. In response\, they’ve curated six artists to create new work for the pillars over three cycles:\n\nPhase 1 (September 12 - December 12) artists: Amelia Burns (Cranbrook MFA ’23) and Erin McKenna (MFA ’20)\nPhase 2 (January 12 - August 12) artists: Sally Clegg (MFA ’20) and Kim Karlsrud (MFA ’20)\nPhase 3 (September 12 - November 12) artists: Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20) and Nathan Byrne (MFA ’21)\nPhase 2 Curatorial Statement\n\nCurated by Sometimes Space: Sally Clegg (entry pillar)\nCurated by CYNK Studios: Kim Karlsrud (courtyard pillar)\n\nArtists Sally Clegg and Kim Karlsrud wrap the Division Street pillars in highly site-specific ornament unearthed from the overlooked margins of Ann Arbor. On the Courtyard pillar\, Karlsrud scales up photographs of objects found in liminal spaces surrounding campus buildings on Green Road\, which the artist has encrusted in road salt. On the entryway pillar\, Clegg zooms in on tiny fragments of found material from UMich’s famous “rock” to celebrate nearly seven decades of student art and activism. Both artists uplift aggregate of local human activity to reveal tiny worlds of found form. \n\nSally Clegg: Sentimentary Rock\nSentimentary Rock is a composition of paint slag collected from the UMich rock monument at the corner of Washtenaw Avenue and Hill Street. This colorful composite material has been accumulating at the base of the iconic limestone boulder since the mid 1950’s\, when students began a tradition of painting it in acts of protest\, creativity\, and ritual\, sometimes multiple times per week. Akin to byproducts of industry such as “Fordite” (collectable chunks of automotive overspray sometimes called ‘Detroit agate’)\, Sentimentary Rock includes thousands of layers\, each dripped from a palimpsestic public proclamation. When processed\, sculpted\, sealed\, assembled\, and macro-photographed\, the result is this enlarged array of tiny gems\, intended to celebrate the indissoluble student voice. \n\nKim Karlsrud: What Amasses\nWhat Amasses is an assemblage of everyday found objects collected within the Miller Creek watershed\, an urbanized drainage system that encompasses much of the city of Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan campus. Selected objects were immersed in a road salt solution\, allowing delicate crystalline formations to emerge. Road salt is a common material input into these hydrological networks during the winter months and exists in multiple states of refinement\, expression\, coherence\, and fragmentation. Each object was then arranged\, photographed\, and enlarged to recontextualize these materials in ways that invite deeper reflections on how infrastructure and human agency blur notions of the natural and the artificial. \nArtist Statements/Bios\n\nSally Clegg \nSally Clegg is an artist and educator from Pelham\, Massachusetts. Her studio practice is rooted in sculpture and expanded printmaking\, stemming from a fascination with human efforts to make meaning from our relationships to objects. Clegg integrates history\, popular culture\, literature and philosophy as material for artmaking\, leveraging personal anecdote and humor to reveal the complexity\, absurdity\, and theoretical richness at play in our connections to things and to ourselves. \n\nClegg holds an MFA in Art from The University of Michigan Stamps School of Art & Design\, and a BA in Art & English from Goucher College. She has exhibited nationally and internationally\, and her work can be found in permanent collections at Yale University\, The New York Public Library\, and elsewhere. Her artwork and writing has appeared in ASAP/Journal\, BOMB Magazine\, Sculpture Magazine\, and Hyperallergic. She is a lecturer in Art & Design at the University of Michigan. Website / Instagram\n\n\nKim Karlsrud \nKim Karlsrud is the co-founder of Commonstudio\, a collaborative creative practice that develops socio-ecological and spatial interventions\, installations\, and initiatives working with and within urban landscapes. Her work explores the space between art and design\, and is grounded in the concept of the “commons\,” that which is shared\, as well as that which is ordinary\, banal\, and commonplace.\n\nKarlsrud completed her undergraduate degree in Product Design from Otis College of Art and Design and an MFA in Art from the University of Michigan. She is currently an Assistant Visiting Professor in the College of Design at the University of Oregon\, teaching across Art and Landscape Architecture departments. She jointly received the 2014-15 Prince Charitable Trust Rome Prize in Landscape Architecture\, was a 2017 resident at the Headlands Center for the Arts\, and is the 2025-26 Fuller Fieldscape Fellow. Website / Instagram
UID:138032-21903400@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/138032
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20250828T001529
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260702T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260702T190000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Fore-Site (Phase 3): The Stamps Gallery Pillar Project
DESCRIPTION:From September 2025 through August 2026\, Stamps Gallery is partnering in a curatorial collaboration with two Ypsilanti-based\, artist-run project spaces led by Stamps alumni: C.Y.N.K. Studios\, directed by Sally Clegg (Lecturer III and Student Exhibition Coordinator\, MFA ’20) and Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20)\; and Sometimes Space\, directed by Nathan Byrne (Lecturer I\, MFA ’21). Each space hosts dozens of artists annually for exhibitions\, performances\, and events\, fostering experimental work and building community. For this project\, Byrne\, Clegg\, and Narula have been commissioned to reimagine the pillars on Division Street that flank the gallery. In response\, they've curated six artists to create new work for the pillars over three cycles:\nPhase 1 (September 12 - December 12) artists: Amelia Burns (Cranbrook MFA '23) and Erin McKenna (MFA '20)Phase 2 (January 12 - April 12) artists: Sally Clegg (MFA '20) and Kim Karlsrud (MFA '20)Phase 3 (May 12 - August 12) artists: Abhishek Narula (MFA '20) and Nathan Byrne (MFA '21)\nPhase 3 \nCurated by Sometimes Space: Abhishek Narula (entry pillar)Curated by CYNK Studios: Nathan Byrne (courtyard pillar)
UID:138033-21881356@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/138033
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260608T121512
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260702T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260702T170000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Marianetta Porter: Breath\, Fragment\, Return
DESCRIPTION:\n\nCurated by Juana Williams\, this exhibition examines how Marianetta Porter uses everyday objects\, fragments\, and embodied memory to make absence an active\, living presence while challenging linear histories. Rooted in African American experience\, her practice treats what is discarded\, overlooked\, or missing not as loss\, but as a source of meaning that continues to act on the present. Through her process and materials\, Porter reveals how memory is carried in the body and embedded in ordinary things. Her work also resists forward-moving notions of time\, instead presenting a diasporic temporality in which past\, present\, and lived experience circulate together through repetition\, touch\, and recall. In doing so\, Porter proposes a vision of history as unfinished\, memory as active\, and absence as a force that sustains connection and shapes the present. \n\nMarianetta Porter is a visual artist and product designer whose research and creative practice are grounded in the study of African American history\, culture\, and representation. Through the language of visual art\, she draws connections between historic memory and contemporary African American life\, giving voice to the history of the African diaspora while acknowledging its central influence on the birth and flourishing of American culture.\n\nHer work has been exhibited nationally at institutions such as the Indianapolis Museum of Art\, the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry\, the Spoleto Festival\, the Harriet Tubman Museum\, and the Hampton University Museum of Art.\n\nShe earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts from Hampton University and her Master of Fine Arts from the University of Michigan. The recipient of numerous awards\, Porter is Professor Emeritus at the University of Michigan’s Stamps School of Art and Design.\n\nJuana Williams is a curator and writer whose work explores the intersections of cross-border intellectual history\, cultural memory\, and identity formation as expressed through modern and contemporary art from Africa and its diasporas.\n\nWilliams has held curatorial and academic appointments at organizations including the Detroit Institute of Arts\, Library Street Collective\, Wayne State University\, and the Urban Institute for Contemporary Art. Her curatorial projects have been presented at institutions across the United States and France\, including the Grand Rapids Art Museum\, the Muskegon Museum of Art\, Palais de Tokyo (Paris)\, and the Westmoreland Museum of American Art. In addition\, she has presented lectures at various museums and universities and contributed to numerous exhibition catalogs. Her work has been written about in publications such as Artsy\, Beaux Arts Magazine\, Condé Nast Traveller\, Michigan Chronicle\, and Observer. Williams holds a BA in Fine Art and an MA in Art History from Wayne State University.
UID:147625-21901387@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/147625
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260421T085257
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260703T090000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260703T170000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Debbie Thompson Exhibition
DESCRIPTION:Debbie Thompson works predominantly in clay and draws inspiration from the natural world\, which she frequently references in her work. Her interest in ceramics began in high school when she took classes at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills\, Michigan. She later pursued her passion at the University of Michigan School of Art and Design\, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts. She also holds a Master of Arts from Eastern Michigan University and has completed post-graduate studio coursework at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago\, Maryland Institute College of Art\, Rhode Island School of Design\, and Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts.\n\nThompson taught visual art in the Ann Arbor Public Schools for 34 years and has also taught at the University of Michigan School of Education and Washtenaw Community College. She exhibits her work both locally and nationally and was a member of the Clay Gallery. She continues her practice in her home studio and at the Potters Guild in Ann Arbor\, Michigan. She is a member of the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts and the Michigan Ceramic Art Association. Her work is included in the permanent collection of the International Dinnerware Museum.\n\nThompson’s work has been inspired by the natural world since childhood. Although she initially studied biology in college\, she later shifted her focus to visual art. The textures\, colors\, and forms in her pieces are drawn directly from nature.\nSeeds—structures that have enabled plants to move through space and time for over 600 million years—are central to her recent work. They are vital to the continuation of plant life\, and therefore to human survival.\n\nIn this exhibition\, Thompson explores the unseen structures of seeds as revealed through electron microscopy. These images highlight the intricate beauty and ingenuity of nature\, which she interprets through her wall-mounted ceramic sculptures.\n\nAt a time when our planet and its ecosystems face increasing threats\, Thompson’s work serves as a reminder of the importance of preserving the natural world. Recognizing the beauty and significance of these often-unseen forms is a crucial first step toward protecting the life systems on which we all depend.
UID:147884-21902266@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/147884
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:North Campus Research Complex Building 18 - Connection Gallery
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260511T181505
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260703T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260703T190000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Fore-Site (Phase 2): The Stamps Gallery Pillar Project
DESCRIPTION:\n\nFrom September 2025 through November 2026\, Stamps Gallery is partnering in a curatorial collaboration with two Ypsilanti-based\, artist-run project spaces led by Stamps alumni: C.Y.N.K. Studios\, directed by Sally Clegg (Lecturer III and Student Exhibition Coordinator\, MFA ’20) and Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20)\; and Sometimes Space\, directed by Nathan Byrne (Lecturer I\, MFA ’21). Each space hosts dozens of artists annually for exhibitions\, performances\, and events\, fostering experimental work and building community. For this project\, Byrne\, Clegg\, and Narula have been commissioned to reimagine the pillars on Division Street that flank the gallery. In response\, they’ve curated six artists to create new work for the pillars over three cycles:\n\nPhase 1 (September 12 - December 12) artists: Amelia Burns (Cranbrook MFA ’23) and Erin McKenna (MFA ’20)\nPhase 2 (January 12 - August 12) artists: Sally Clegg (MFA ’20) and Kim Karlsrud (MFA ’20)\nPhase 3 (September 12 - November 12) artists: Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20) and Nathan Byrne (MFA ’21)\nPhase 2 Curatorial Statement\n\nCurated by Sometimes Space: Sally Clegg (entry pillar)\nCurated by CYNK Studios: Kim Karlsrud (courtyard pillar)\n\nArtists Sally Clegg and Kim Karlsrud wrap the Division Street pillars in highly site-specific ornament unearthed from the overlooked margins of Ann Arbor. On the Courtyard pillar\, Karlsrud scales up photographs of objects found in liminal spaces surrounding campus buildings on Green Road\, which the artist has encrusted in road salt. On the entryway pillar\, Clegg zooms in on tiny fragments of found material from UMich’s famous “rock” to celebrate nearly seven decades of student art and activism. Both artists uplift aggregate of local human activity to reveal tiny worlds of found form. \n\nSally Clegg: Sentimentary Rock\nSentimentary Rock is a composition of paint slag collected from the UMich rock monument at the corner of Washtenaw Avenue and Hill Street. This colorful composite material has been accumulating at the base of the iconic limestone boulder since the mid 1950’s\, when students began a tradition of painting it in acts of protest\, creativity\, and ritual\, sometimes multiple times per week. Akin to byproducts of industry such as “Fordite” (collectable chunks of automotive overspray sometimes called ‘Detroit agate’)\, Sentimentary Rock includes thousands of layers\, each dripped from a palimpsestic public proclamation. When processed\, sculpted\, sealed\, assembled\, and macro-photographed\, the result is this enlarged array of tiny gems\, intended to celebrate the indissoluble student voice. \n\nKim Karlsrud: What Amasses\nWhat Amasses is an assemblage of everyday found objects collected within the Miller Creek watershed\, an urbanized drainage system that encompasses much of the city of Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan campus. Selected objects were immersed in a road salt solution\, allowing delicate crystalline formations to emerge. Road salt is a common material input into these hydrological networks during the winter months and exists in multiple states of refinement\, expression\, coherence\, and fragmentation. Each object was then arranged\, photographed\, and enlarged to recontextualize these materials in ways that invite deeper reflections on how infrastructure and human agency blur notions of the natural and the artificial. \nArtist Statements/Bios\n\nSally Clegg \nSally Clegg is an artist and educator from Pelham\, Massachusetts. Her studio practice is rooted in sculpture and expanded printmaking\, stemming from a fascination with human efforts to make meaning from our relationships to objects. Clegg integrates history\, popular culture\, literature and philosophy as material for artmaking\, leveraging personal anecdote and humor to reveal the complexity\, absurdity\, and theoretical richness at play in our connections to things and to ourselves. \n\nClegg holds an MFA in Art from The University of Michigan Stamps School of Art & Design\, and a BA in Art & English from Goucher College. She has exhibited nationally and internationally\, and her work can be found in permanent collections at Yale University\, The New York Public Library\, and elsewhere. Her artwork and writing has appeared in ASAP/Journal\, BOMB Magazine\, Sculpture Magazine\, and Hyperallergic. She is a lecturer in Art & Design at the University of Michigan. Website / Instagram\n\n\nKim Karlsrud \nKim Karlsrud is the co-founder of Commonstudio\, a collaborative creative practice that develops socio-ecological and spatial interventions\, installations\, and initiatives working with and within urban landscapes. Her work explores the space between art and design\, and is grounded in the concept of the “commons\,” that which is shared\, as well as that which is ordinary\, banal\, and commonplace.\n\nKarlsrud completed her undergraduate degree in Product Design from Otis College of Art and Design and an MFA in Art from the University of Michigan. She is currently an Assistant Visiting Professor in the College of Design at the University of Oregon\, teaching across Art and Landscape Architecture departments. She jointly received the 2014-15 Prince Charitable Trust Rome Prize in Landscape Architecture\, was a 2017 resident at the Headlands Center for the Arts\, and is the 2025-26 Fuller Fieldscape Fellow. Website / Instagram
UID:138032-21903401@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/138032
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20250828T001529
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260703T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260703T190000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Fore-Site (Phase 3): The Stamps Gallery Pillar Project
DESCRIPTION:From September 2025 through August 2026\, Stamps Gallery is partnering in a curatorial collaboration with two Ypsilanti-based\, artist-run project spaces led by Stamps alumni: C.Y.N.K. Studios\, directed by Sally Clegg (Lecturer III and Student Exhibition Coordinator\, MFA ’20) and Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20)\; and Sometimes Space\, directed by Nathan Byrne (Lecturer I\, MFA ’21). Each space hosts dozens of artists annually for exhibitions\, performances\, and events\, fostering experimental work and building community. For this project\, Byrne\, Clegg\, and Narula have been commissioned to reimagine the pillars on Division Street that flank the gallery. In response\, they've curated six artists to create new work for the pillars over three cycles:\nPhase 1 (September 12 - December 12) artists: Amelia Burns (Cranbrook MFA '23) and Erin McKenna (MFA '20)Phase 2 (January 12 - April 12) artists: Sally Clegg (MFA '20) and Kim Karlsrud (MFA '20)Phase 3 (May 12 - August 12) artists: Abhishek Narula (MFA '20) and Nathan Byrne (MFA '21)\nPhase 3 \nCurated by Sometimes Space: Abhishek Narula (entry pillar)Curated by CYNK Studios: Nathan Byrne (courtyard pillar)
UID:138033-21881357@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/138033
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260608T121512
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260703T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260703T170000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Marianetta Porter: Breath\, Fragment\, Return
DESCRIPTION:\n\nCurated by Juana Williams\, this exhibition examines how Marianetta Porter uses everyday objects\, fragments\, and embodied memory to make absence an active\, living presence while challenging linear histories. Rooted in African American experience\, her practice treats what is discarded\, overlooked\, or missing not as loss\, but as a source of meaning that continues to act on the present. Through her process and materials\, Porter reveals how memory is carried in the body and embedded in ordinary things. Her work also resists forward-moving notions of time\, instead presenting a diasporic temporality in which past\, present\, and lived experience circulate together through repetition\, touch\, and recall. In doing so\, Porter proposes a vision of history as unfinished\, memory as active\, and absence as a force that sustains connection and shapes the present. \n\nMarianetta Porter is a visual artist and product designer whose research and creative practice are grounded in the study of African American history\, culture\, and representation. Through the language of visual art\, she draws connections between historic memory and contemporary African American life\, giving voice to the history of the African diaspora while acknowledging its central influence on the birth and flourishing of American culture.\n\nHer work has been exhibited nationally at institutions such as the Indianapolis Museum of Art\, the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry\, the Spoleto Festival\, the Harriet Tubman Museum\, and the Hampton University Museum of Art.\n\nShe earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts from Hampton University and her Master of Fine Arts from the University of Michigan. The recipient of numerous awards\, Porter is Professor Emeritus at the University of Michigan’s Stamps School of Art and Design.\n\nJuana Williams is a curator and writer whose work explores the intersections of cross-border intellectual history\, cultural memory\, and identity formation as expressed through modern and contemporary art from Africa and its diasporas.\n\nWilliams has held curatorial and academic appointments at organizations including the Detroit Institute of Arts\, Library Street Collective\, Wayne State University\, and the Urban Institute for Contemporary Art. Her curatorial projects have been presented at institutions across the United States and France\, including the Grand Rapids Art Museum\, the Muskegon Museum of Art\, Palais de Tokyo (Paris)\, and the Westmoreland Museum of American Art. In addition\, she has presented lectures at various museums and universities and contributed to numerous exhibition catalogs. Her work has been written about in publications such as Artsy\, Beaux Arts Magazine\, Condé Nast Traveller\, Michigan Chronicle\, and Observer. Williams holds a BA in Fine Art and an MA in Art History from Wayne State University.
UID:147625-21901388@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/147625
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260511T181505
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260704T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260704T190000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Fore-Site (Phase 2): The Stamps Gallery Pillar Project
DESCRIPTION:\n\nFrom September 2025 through November 2026\, Stamps Gallery is partnering in a curatorial collaboration with two Ypsilanti-based\, artist-run project spaces led by Stamps alumni: C.Y.N.K. Studios\, directed by Sally Clegg (Lecturer III and Student Exhibition Coordinator\, MFA ’20) and Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20)\; and Sometimes Space\, directed by Nathan Byrne (Lecturer I\, MFA ’21). Each space hosts dozens of artists annually for exhibitions\, performances\, and events\, fostering experimental work and building community. For this project\, Byrne\, Clegg\, and Narula have been commissioned to reimagine the pillars on Division Street that flank the gallery. In response\, they’ve curated six artists to create new work for the pillars over three cycles:\n\nPhase 1 (September 12 - December 12) artists: Amelia Burns (Cranbrook MFA ’23) and Erin McKenna (MFA ’20)\nPhase 2 (January 12 - August 12) artists: Sally Clegg (MFA ’20) and Kim Karlsrud (MFA ’20)\nPhase 3 (September 12 - November 12) artists: Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20) and Nathan Byrne (MFA ’21)\nPhase 2 Curatorial Statement\n\nCurated by Sometimes Space: Sally Clegg (entry pillar)\nCurated by CYNK Studios: Kim Karlsrud (courtyard pillar)\n\nArtists Sally Clegg and Kim Karlsrud wrap the Division Street pillars in highly site-specific ornament unearthed from the overlooked margins of Ann Arbor. On the Courtyard pillar\, Karlsrud scales up photographs of objects found in liminal spaces surrounding campus buildings on Green Road\, which the artist has encrusted in road salt. On the entryway pillar\, Clegg zooms in on tiny fragments of found material from UMich’s famous “rock” to celebrate nearly seven decades of student art and activism. Both artists uplift aggregate of local human activity to reveal tiny worlds of found form. \n\nSally Clegg: Sentimentary Rock\nSentimentary Rock is a composition of paint slag collected from the UMich rock monument at the corner of Washtenaw Avenue and Hill Street. This colorful composite material has been accumulating at the base of the iconic limestone boulder since the mid 1950’s\, when students began a tradition of painting it in acts of protest\, creativity\, and ritual\, sometimes multiple times per week. Akin to byproducts of industry such as “Fordite” (collectable chunks of automotive overspray sometimes called ‘Detroit agate’)\, Sentimentary Rock includes thousands of layers\, each dripped from a palimpsestic public proclamation. When processed\, sculpted\, sealed\, assembled\, and macro-photographed\, the result is this enlarged array of tiny gems\, intended to celebrate the indissoluble student voice. \n\nKim Karlsrud: What Amasses\nWhat Amasses is an assemblage of everyday found objects collected within the Miller Creek watershed\, an urbanized drainage system that encompasses much of the city of Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan campus. Selected objects were immersed in a road salt solution\, allowing delicate crystalline formations to emerge. Road salt is a common material input into these hydrological networks during the winter months and exists in multiple states of refinement\, expression\, coherence\, and fragmentation. Each object was then arranged\, photographed\, and enlarged to recontextualize these materials in ways that invite deeper reflections on how infrastructure and human agency blur notions of the natural and the artificial. \nArtist Statements/Bios\n\nSally Clegg \nSally Clegg is an artist and educator from Pelham\, Massachusetts. Her studio practice is rooted in sculpture and expanded printmaking\, stemming from a fascination with human efforts to make meaning from our relationships to objects. Clegg integrates history\, popular culture\, literature and philosophy as material for artmaking\, leveraging personal anecdote and humor to reveal the complexity\, absurdity\, and theoretical richness at play in our connections to things and to ourselves. \n\nClegg holds an MFA in Art from The University of Michigan Stamps School of Art & Design\, and a BA in Art & English from Goucher College. She has exhibited nationally and internationally\, and her work can be found in permanent collections at Yale University\, The New York Public Library\, and elsewhere. Her artwork and writing has appeared in ASAP/Journal\, BOMB Magazine\, Sculpture Magazine\, and Hyperallergic. She is a lecturer in Art & Design at the University of Michigan. Website / Instagram\n\n\nKim Karlsrud \nKim Karlsrud is the co-founder of Commonstudio\, a collaborative creative practice that develops socio-ecological and spatial interventions\, installations\, and initiatives working with and within urban landscapes. Her work explores the space between art and design\, and is grounded in the concept of the “commons\,” that which is shared\, as well as that which is ordinary\, banal\, and commonplace.\n\nKarlsrud completed her undergraduate degree in Product Design from Otis College of Art and Design and an MFA in Art from the University of Michigan. She is currently an Assistant Visiting Professor in the College of Design at the University of Oregon\, teaching across Art and Landscape Architecture departments. She jointly received the 2014-15 Prince Charitable Trust Rome Prize in Landscape Architecture\, was a 2017 resident at the Headlands Center for the Arts\, and is the 2025-26 Fuller Fieldscape Fellow. Website / Instagram
UID:138032-21903402@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/138032
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20250828T001529
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260704T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260704T190000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Fore-Site (Phase 3): The Stamps Gallery Pillar Project
DESCRIPTION:From September 2025 through August 2026\, Stamps Gallery is partnering in a curatorial collaboration with two Ypsilanti-based\, artist-run project spaces led by Stamps alumni: C.Y.N.K. Studios\, directed by Sally Clegg (Lecturer III and Student Exhibition Coordinator\, MFA ’20) and Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20)\; and Sometimes Space\, directed by Nathan Byrne (Lecturer I\, MFA ’21). Each space hosts dozens of artists annually for exhibitions\, performances\, and events\, fostering experimental work and building community. For this project\, Byrne\, Clegg\, and Narula have been commissioned to reimagine the pillars on Division Street that flank the gallery. In response\, they've curated six artists to create new work for the pillars over three cycles:\nPhase 1 (September 12 - December 12) artists: Amelia Burns (Cranbrook MFA '23) and Erin McKenna (MFA '20)Phase 2 (January 12 - April 12) artists: Sally Clegg (MFA '20) and Kim Karlsrud (MFA '20)Phase 3 (May 12 - August 12) artists: Abhishek Narula (MFA '20) and Nathan Byrne (MFA '21)\nPhase 3 \nCurated by Sometimes Space: Abhishek Narula (entry pillar)Curated by CYNK Studios: Nathan Byrne (courtyard pillar)
UID:138033-21881358@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/138033
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260608T121512
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260704T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260704T170000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Marianetta Porter: Breath\, Fragment\, Return
DESCRIPTION:\n\nCurated by Juana Williams\, this exhibition examines how Marianetta Porter uses everyday objects\, fragments\, and embodied memory to make absence an active\, living presence while challenging linear histories. Rooted in African American experience\, her practice treats what is discarded\, overlooked\, or missing not as loss\, but as a source of meaning that continues to act on the present. Through her process and materials\, Porter reveals how memory is carried in the body and embedded in ordinary things. Her work also resists forward-moving notions of time\, instead presenting a diasporic temporality in which past\, present\, and lived experience circulate together through repetition\, touch\, and recall. In doing so\, Porter proposes a vision of history as unfinished\, memory as active\, and absence as a force that sustains connection and shapes the present. \n\nMarianetta Porter is a visual artist and product designer whose research and creative practice are grounded in the study of African American history\, culture\, and representation. Through the language of visual art\, she draws connections between historic memory and contemporary African American life\, giving voice to the history of the African diaspora while acknowledging its central influence on the birth and flourishing of American culture.\n\nHer work has been exhibited nationally at institutions such as the Indianapolis Museum of Art\, the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry\, the Spoleto Festival\, the Harriet Tubman Museum\, and the Hampton University Museum of Art.\n\nShe earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts from Hampton University and her Master of Fine Arts from the University of Michigan. The recipient of numerous awards\, Porter is Professor Emeritus at the University of Michigan’s Stamps School of Art and Design.\n\nJuana Williams is a curator and writer whose work explores the intersections of cross-border intellectual history\, cultural memory\, and identity formation as expressed through modern and contemporary art from Africa and its diasporas.\n\nWilliams has held curatorial and academic appointments at organizations including the Detroit Institute of Arts\, Library Street Collective\, Wayne State University\, and the Urban Institute for Contemporary Art. Her curatorial projects have been presented at institutions across the United States and France\, including the Grand Rapids Art Museum\, the Muskegon Museum of Art\, Palais de Tokyo (Paris)\, and the Westmoreland Museum of American Art. In addition\, she has presented lectures at various museums and universities and contributed to numerous exhibition catalogs. Her work has been written about in publications such as Artsy\, Beaux Arts Magazine\, Condé Nast Traveller\, Michigan Chronicle\, and Observer. Williams holds a BA in Fine Art and an MA in Art History from Wayne State University.
UID:147625-21901389@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/147625
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260421T085257
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260706T090000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260706T170000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Debbie Thompson Exhibition
DESCRIPTION:Debbie Thompson works predominantly in clay and draws inspiration from the natural world\, which she frequently references in her work. Her interest in ceramics began in high school when she took classes at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills\, Michigan. She later pursued her passion at the University of Michigan School of Art and Design\, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts. She also holds a Master of Arts from Eastern Michigan University and has completed post-graduate studio coursework at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago\, Maryland Institute College of Art\, Rhode Island School of Design\, and Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts.\n\nThompson taught visual art in the Ann Arbor Public Schools for 34 years and has also taught at the University of Michigan School of Education and Washtenaw Community College. She exhibits her work both locally and nationally and was a member of the Clay Gallery. She continues her practice in her home studio and at the Potters Guild in Ann Arbor\, Michigan. She is a member of the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts and the Michigan Ceramic Art Association. Her work is included in the permanent collection of the International Dinnerware Museum.\n\nThompson’s work has been inspired by the natural world since childhood. Although she initially studied biology in college\, she later shifted her focus to visual art. The textures\, colors\, and forms in her pieces are drawn directly from nature.\nSeeds—structures that have enabled plants to move through space and time for over 600 million years—are central to her recent work. They are vital to the continuation of plant life\, and therefore to human survival.\n\nIn this exhibition\, Thompson explores the unseen structures of seeds as revealed through electron microscopy. These images highlight the intricate beauty and ingenuity of nature\, which she interprets through her wall-mounted ceramic sculptures.\n\nAt a time when our planet and its ecosystems face increasing threats\, Thompson’s work serves as a reminder of the importance of preserving the natural world. Recognizing the beauty and significance of these often-unseen forms is a crucial first step toward protecting the life systems on which we all depend.
UID:147884-21902269@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/147884
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:North Campus Research Complex Building 18 - Connection Gallery
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260529T181518
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260706T150000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260706T160000
SUMMARY:Other:Virtual Information Session
DESCRIPTION:\n\nJoin us for a virtual\, hour-long info session on undergraduate programs at the University of Michigan Stamps School of Art & Design\, including a presentation and Q&A with current students and the admissions team.\n\nInfo session times are Eastern US.\n\nVisit our Admissions Events page to learn more about additional upcoming events.
UID:148492-21904372@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/148492
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260421T085257
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260707T090000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260707T170000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Debbie Thompson Exhibition
DESCRIPTION:Debbie Thompson works predominantly in clay and draws inspiration from the natural world\, which she frequently references in her work. Her interest in ceramics began in high school when she took classes at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills\, Michigan. She later pursued her passion at the University of Michigan School of Art and Design\, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts. She also holds a Master of Arts from Eastern Michigan University and has completed post-graduate studio coursework at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago\, Maryland Institute College of Art\, Rhode Island School of Design\, and Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts.\n\nThompson taught visual art in the Ann Arbor Public Schools for 34 years and has also taught at the University of Michigan School of Education and Washtenaw Community College. She exhibits her work both locally and nationally and was a member of the Clay Gallery. She continues her practice in her home studio and at the Potters Guild in Ann Arbor\, Michigan. She is a member of the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts and the Michigan Ceramic Art Association. Her work is included in the permanent collection of the International Dinnerware Museum.\n\nThompson’s work has been inspired by the natural world since childhood. Although she initially studied biology in college\, she later shifted her focus to visual art. The textures\, colors\, and forms in her pieces are drawn directly from nature.\nSeeds—structures that have enabled plants to move through space and time for over 600 million years—are central to her recent work. They are vital to the continuation of plant life\, and therefore to human survival.\n\nIn this exhibition\, Thompson explores the unseen structures of seeds as revealed through electron microscopy. These images highlight the intricate beauty and ingenuity of nature\, which she interprets through her wall-mounted ceramic sculptures.\n\nAt a time when our planet and its ecosystems face increasing threats\, Thompson’s work serves as a reminder of the importance of preserving the natural world. Recognizing the beauty and significance of these often-unseen forms is a crucial first step toward protecting the life systems on which we all depend.
UID:147884-21902270@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/147884
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:North Campus Research Complex Building 18 - Connection Gallery
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260421T085257
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260708T090000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260708T170000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Debbie Thompson Exhibition
DESCRIPTION:Debbie Thompson works predominantly in clay and draws inspiration from the natural world\, which she frequently references in her work. Her interest in ceramics began in high school when she took classes at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills\, Michigan. She later pursued her passion at the University of Michigan School of Art and Design\, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts. She also holds a Master of Arts from Eastern Michigan University and has completed post-graduate studio coursework at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago\, Maryland Institute College of Art\, Rhode Island School of Design\, and Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts.\n\nThompson taught visual art in the Ann Arbor Public Schools for 34 years and has also taught at the University of Michigan School of Education and Washtenaw Community College. She exhibits her work both locally and nationally and was a member of the Clay Gallery. She continues her practice in her home studio and at the Potters Guild in Ann Arbor\, Michigan. She is a member of the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts and the Michigan Ceramic Art Association. Her work is included in the permanent collection of the International Dinnerware Museum.\n\nThompson’s work has been inspired by the natural world since childhood. Although she initially studied biology in college\, she later shifted her focus to visual art. The textures\, colors\, and forms in her pieces are drawn directly from nature.\nSeeds—structures that have enabled plants to move through space and time for over 600 million years—are central to her recent work. They are vital to the continuation of plant life\, and therefore to human survival.\n\nIn this exhibition\, Thompson explores the unseen structures of seeds as revealed through electron microscopy. These images highlight the intricate beauty and ingenuity of nature\, which she interprets through her wall-mounted ceramic sculptures.\n\nAt a time when our planet and its ecosystems face increasing threats\, Thompson’s work serves as a reminder of the importance of preserving the natural world. Recognizing the beauty and significance of these often-unseen forms is a crucial first step toward protecting the life systems on which we all depend.
UID:147884-21902271@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/147884
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:North Campus Research Complex Building 18 - Connection Gallery
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260511T181505
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260708T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260708T190000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Fore-Site (Phase 2): The Stamps Gallery Pillar Project
DESCRIPTION:\n\nFrom September 2025 through November 2026\, Stamps Gallery is partnering in a curatorial collaboration with two Ypsilanti-based\, artist-run project spaces led by Stamps alumni: C.Y.N.K. Studios\, directed by Sally Clegg (Lecturer III and Student Exhibition Coordinator\, MFA ’20) and Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20)\; and Sometimes Space\, directed by Nathan Byrne (Lecturer I\, MFA ’21). Each space hosts dozens of artists annually for exhibitions\, performances\, and events\, fostering experimental work and building community. For this project\, Byrne\, Clegg\, and Narula have been commissioned to reimagine the pillars on Division Street that flank the gallery. In response\, they’ve curated six artists to create new work for the pillars over three cycles:\n\nPhase 1 (September 12 - December 12) artists: Amelia Burns (Cranbrook MFA ’23) and Erin McKenna (MFA ’20)\nPhase 2 (January 12 - August 12) artists: Sally Clegg (MFA ’20) and Kim Karlsrud (MFA ’20)\nPhase 3 (September 12 - November 12) artists: Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20) and Nathan Byrne (MFA ’21)\nPhase 2 Curatorial Statement\n\nCurated by Sometimes Space: Sally Clegg (entry pillar)\nCurated by CYNK Studios: Kim Karlsrud (courtyard pillar)\n\nArtists Sally Clegg and Kim Karlsrud wrap the Division Street pillars in highly site-specific ornament unearthed from the overlooked margins of Ann Arbor. On the Courtyard pillar\, Karlsrud scales up photographs of objects found in liminal spaces surrounding campus buildings on Green Road\, which the artist has encrusted in road salt. On the entryway pillar\, Clegg zooms in on tiny fragments of found material from UMich’s famous “rock” to celebrate nearly seven decades of student art and activism. Both artists uplift aggregate of local human activity to reveal tiny worlds of found form. \n\nSally Clegg: Sentimentary Rock\nSentimentary Rock is a composition of paint slag collected from the UMich rock monument at the corner of Washtenaw Avenue and Hill Street. This colorful composite material has been accumulating at the base of the iconic limestone boulder since the mid 1950’s\, when students began a tradition of painting it in acts of protest\, creativity\, and ritual\, sometimes multiple times per week. Akin to byproducts of industry such as “Fordite” (collectable chunks of automotive overspray sometimes called ‘Detroit agate’)\, Sentimentary Rock includes thousands of layers\, each dripped from a palimpsestic public proclamation. When processed\, sculpted\, sealed\, assembled\, and macro-photographed\, the result is this enlarged array of tiny gems\, intended to celebrate the indissoluble student voice. \n\nKim Karlsrud: What Amasses\nWhat Amasses is an assemblage of everyday found objects collected within the Miller Creek watershed\, an urbanized drainage system that encompasses much of the city of Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan campus. Selected objects were immersed in a road salt solution\, allowing delicate crystalline formations to emerge. Road salt is a common material input into these hydrological networks during the winter months and exists in multiple states of refinement\, expression\, coherence\, and fragmentation. Each object was then arranged\, photographed\, and enlarged to recontextualize these materials in ways that invite deeper reflections on how infrastructure and human agency blur notions of the natural and the artificial. \nArtist Statements/Bios\n\nSally Clegg \nSally Clegg is an artist and educator from Pelham\, Massachusetts. Her studio practice is rooted in sculpture and expanded printmaking\, stemming from a fascination with human efforts to make meaning from our relationships to objects. Clegg integrates history\, popular culture\, literature and philosophy as material for artmaking\, leveraging personal anecdote and humor to reveal the complexity\, absurdity\, and theoretical richness at play in our connections to things and to ourselves. \n\nClegg holds an MFA in Art from The University of Michigan Stamps School of Art & Design\, and a BA in Art & English from Goucher College. She has exhibited nationally and internationally\, and her work can be found in permanent collections at Yale University\, The New York Public Library\, and elsewhere. Her artwork and writing has appeared in ASAP/Journal\, BOMB Magazine\, Sculpture Magazine\, and Hyperallergic. She is a lecturer in Art & Design at the University of Michigan. Website / Instagram\n\n\nKim Karlsrud \nKim Karlsrud is the co-founder of Commonstudio\, a collaborative creative practice that develops socio-ecological and spatial interventions\, installations\, and initiatives working with and within urban landscapes. Her work explores the space between art and design\, and is grounded in the concept of the “commons\,” that which is shared\, as well as that which is ordinary\, banal\, and commonplace.\n\nKarlsrud completed her undergraduate degree in Product Design from Otis College of Art and Design and an MFA in Art from the University of Michigan. She is currently an Assistant Visiting Professor in the College of Design at the University of Oregon\, teaching across Art and Landscape Architecture departments. She jointly received the 2014-15 Prince Charitable Trust Rome Prize in Landscape Architecture\, was a 2017 resident at the Headlands Center for the Arts\, and is the 2025-26 Fuller Fieldscape Fellow. Website / Instagram
UID:138032-21903403@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/138032
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20250828T001529
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260708T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260708T190000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Fore-Site (Phase 3): The Stamps Gallery Pillar Project
DESCRIPTION:From September 2025 through August 2026\, Stamps Gallery is partnering in a curatorial collaboration with two Ypsilanti-based\, artist-run project spaces led by Stamps alumni: C.Y.N.K. Studios\, directed by Sally Clegg (Lecturer III and Student Exhibition Coordinator\, MFA ’20) and Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20)\; and Sometimes Space\, directed by Nathan Byrne (Lecturer I\, MFA ’21). Each space hosts dozens of artists annually for exhibitions\, performances\, and events\, fostering experimental work and building community. For this project\, Byrne\, Clegg\, and Narula have been commissioned to reimagine the pillars on Division Street that flank the gallery. In response\, they've curated six artists to create new work for the pillars over three cycles:\nPhase 1 (September 12 - December 12) artists: Amelia Burns (Cranbrook MFA '23) and Erin McKenna (MFA '20)Phase 2 (January 12 - April 12) artists: Sally Clegg (MFA '20) and Kim Karlsrud (MFA '20)Phase 3 (May 12 - August 12) artists: Abhishek Narula (MFA '20) and Nathan Byrne (MFA '21)\nPhase 3 \nCurated by Sometimes Space: Abhishek Narula (entry pillar)Curated by CYNK Studios: Nathan Byrne (courtyard pillar)
UID:138033-21881359@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/138033
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260608T121512
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260708T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260708T170000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Marianetta Porter: Breath\, Fragment\, Return
DESCRIPTION:\n\nCurated by Juana Williams\, this exhibition examines how Marianetta Porter uses everyday objects\, fragments\, and embodied memory to make absence an active\, living presence while challenging linear histories. Rooted in African American experience\, her practice treats what is discarded\, overlooked\, or missing not as loss\, but as a source of meaning that continues to act on the present. Through her process and materials\, Porter reveals how memory is carried in the body and embedded in ordinary things. Her work also resists forward-moving notions of time\, instead presenting a diasporic temporality in which past\, present\, and lived experience circulate together through repetition\, touch\, and recall. In doing so\, Porter proposes a vision of history as unfinished\, memory as active\, and absence as a force that sustains connection and shapes the present. \n\nMarianetta Porter is a visual artist and product designer whose research and creative practice are grounded in the study of African American history\, culture\, and representation. Through the language of visual art\, she draws connections between historic memory and contemporary African American life\, giving voice to the history of the African diaspora while acknowledging its central influence on the birth and flourishing of American culture.\n\nHer work has been exhibited nationally at institutions such as the Indianapolis Museum of Art\, the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry\, the Spoleto Festival\, the Harriet Tubman Museum\, and the Hampton University Museum of Art.\n\nShe earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts from Hampton University and her Master of Fine Arts from the University of Michigan. The recipient of numerous awards\, Porter is Professor Emeritus at the University of Michigan’s Stamps School of Art and Design.\n\nJuana Williams is a curator and writer whose work explores the intersections of cross-border intellectual history\, cultural memory\, and identity formation as expressed through modern and contemporary art from Africa and its diasporas.\n\nWilliams has held curatorial and academic appointments at organizations including the Detroit Institute of Arts\, Library Street Collective\, Wayne State University\, and the Urban Institute for Contemporary Art. Her curatorial projects have been presented at institutions across the United States and France\, including the Grand Rapids Art Museum\, the Muskegon Museum of Art\, Palais de Tokyo (Paris)\, and the Westmoreland Museum of American Art. In addition\, she has presented lectures at various museums and universities and contributed to numerous exhibition catalogs. Her work has been written about in publications such as Artsy\, Beaux Arts Magazine\, Condé Nast Traveller\, Michigan Chronicle\, and Observer. Williams holds a BA in Fine Art and an MA in Art History from Wayne State University.
UID:147625-21901390@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/147625
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260421T085257
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260709T090000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260709T170000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Debbie Thompson Exhibition
DESCRIPTION:Debbie Thompson works predominantly in clay and draws inspiration from the natural world\, which she frequently references in her work. Her interest in ceramics began in high school when she took classes at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills\, Michigan. She later pursued her passion at the University of Michigan School of Art and Design\, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts. She also holds a Master of Arts from Eastern Michigan University and has completed post-graduate studio coursework at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago\, Maryland Institute College of Art\, Rhode Island School of Design\, and Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts.\n\nThompson taught visual art in the Ann Arbor Public Schools for 34 years and has also taught at the University of Michigan School of Education and Washtenaw Community College. She exhibits her work both locally and nationally and was a member of the Clay Gallery. She continues her practice in her home studio and at the Potters Guild in Ann Arbor\, Michigan. She is a member of the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts and the Michigan Ceramic Art Association. Her work is included in the permanent collection of the International Dinnerware Museum.\n\nThompson’s work has been inspired by the natural world since childhood. Although she initially studied biology in college\, she later shifted her focus to visual art. The textures\, colors\, and forms in her pieces are drawn directly from nature.\nSeeds—structures that have enabled plants to move through space and time for over 600 million years—are central to her recent work. They are vital to the continuation of plant life\, and therefore to human survival.\n\nIn this exhibition\, Thompson explores the unseen structures of seeds as revealed through electron microscopy. These images highlight the intricate beauty and ingenuity of nature\, which she interprets through her wall-mounted ceramic sculptures.\n\nAt a time when our planet and its ecosystems face increasing threats\, Thompson’s work serves as a reminder of the importance of preserving the natural world. Recognizing the beauty and significance of these often-unseen forms is a crucial first step toward protecting the life systems on which we all depend.
UID:147884-21902272@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/147884
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:North Campus Research Complex Building 18 - Connection Gallery
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260511T181505
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260709T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260709T190000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Fore-Site (Phase 2): The Stamps Gallery Pillar Project
DESCRIPTION:\n\nFrom September 2025 through November 2026\, Stamps Gallery is partnering in a curatorial collaboration with two Ypsilanti-based\, artist-run project spaces led by Stamps alumni: C.Y.N.K. Studios\, directed by Sally Clegg (Lecturer III and Student Exhibition Coordinator\, MFA ’20) and Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20)\; and Sometimes Space\, directed by Nathan Byrne (Lecturer I\, MFA ’21). Each space hosts dozens of artists annually for exhibitions\, performances\, and events\, fostering experimental work and building community. For this project\, Byrne\, Clegg\, and Narula have been commissioned to reimagine the pillars on Division Street that flank the gallery. In response\, they’ve curated six artists to create new work for the pillars over three cycles:\n\nPhase 1 (September 12 - December 12) artists: Amelia Burns (Cranbrook MFA ’23) and Erin McKenna (MFA ’20)\nPhase 2 (January 12 - August 12) artists: Sally Clegg (MFA ’20) and Kim Karlsrud (MFA ’20)\nPhase 3 (September 12 - November 12) artists: Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20) and Nathan Byrne (MFA ’21)\nPhase 2 Curatorial Statement\n\nCurated by Sometimes Space: Sally Clegg (entry pillar)\nCurated by CYNK Studios: Kim Karlsrud (courtyard pillar)\n\nArtists Sally Clegg and Kim Karlsrud wrap the Division Street pillars in highly site-specific ornament unearthed from the overlooked margins of Ann Arbor. On the Courtyard pillar\, Karlsrud scales up photographs of objects found in liminal spaces surrounding campus buildings on Green Road\, which the artist has encrusted in road salt. On the entryway pillar\, Clegg zooms in on tiny fragments of found material from UMich’s famous “rock” to celebrate nearly seven decades of student art and activism. Both artists uplift aggregate of local human activity to reveal tiny worlds of found form. \n\nSally Clegg: Sentimentary Rock\nSentimentary Rock is a composition of paint slag collected from the UMich rock monument at the corner of Washtenaw Avenue and Hill Street. This colorful composite material has been accumulating at the base of the iconic limestone boulder since the mid 1950’s\, when students began a tradition of painting it in acts of protest\, creativity\, and ritual\, sometimes multiple times per week. Akin to byproducts of industry such as “Fordite” (collectable chunks of automotive overspray sometimes called ‘Detroit agate’)\, Sentimentary Rock includes thousands of layers\, each dripped from a palimpsestic public proclamation. When processed\, sculpted\, sealed\, assembled\, and macro-photographed\, the result is this enlarged array of tiny gems\, intended to celebrate the indissoluble student voice. \n\nKim Karlsrud: What Amasses\nWhat Amasses is an assemblage of everyday found objects collected within the Miller Creek watershed\, an urbanized drainage system that encompasses much of the city of Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan campus. Selected objects were immersed in a road salt solution\, allowing delicate crystalline formations to emerge. Road salt is a common material input into these hydrological networks during the winter months and exists in multiple states of refinement\, expression\, coherence\, and fragmentation. Each object was then arranged\, photographed\, and enlarged to recontextualize these materials in ways that invite deeper reflections on how infrastructure and human agency blur notions of the natural and the artificial. \nArtist Statements/Bios\n\nSally Clegg \nSally Clegg is an artist and educator from Pelham\, Massachusetts. Her studio practice is rooted in sculpture and expanded printmaking\, stemming from a fascination with human efforts to make meaning from our relationships to objects. Clegg integrates history\, popular culture\, literature and philosophy as material for artmaking\, leveraging personal anecdote and humor to reveal the complexity\, absurdity\, and theoretical richness at play in our connections to things and to ourselves. \n\nClegg holds an MFA in Art from The University of Michigan Stamps School of Art & Design\, and a BA in Art & English from Goucher College. She has exhibited nationally and internationally\, and her work can be found in permanent collections at Yale University\, The New York Public Library\, and elsewhere. Her artwork and writing has appeared in ASAP/Journal\, BOMB Magazine\, Sculpture Magazine\, and Hyperallergic. She is a lecturer in Art & Design at the University of Michigan. Website / Instagram\n\n\nKim Karlsrud \nKim Karlsrud is the co-founder of Commonstudio\, a collaborative creative practice that develops socio-ecological and spatial interventions\, installations\, and initiatives working with and within urban landscapes. Her work explores the space between art and design\, and is grounded in the concept of the “commons\,” that which is shared\, as well as that which is ordinary\, banal\, and commonplace.\n\nKarlsrud completed her undergraduate degree in Product Design from Otis College of Art and Design and an MFA in Art from the University of Michigan. She is currently an Assistant Visiting Professor in the College of Design at the University of Oregon\, teaching across Art and Landscape Architecture departments. She jointly received the 2014-15 Prince Charitable Trust Rome Prize in Landscape Architecture\, was a 2017 resident at the Headlands Center for the Arts\, and is the 2025-26 Fuller Fieldscape Fellow. Website / Instagram
UID:138032-21903404@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/138032
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20250828T001529
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260709T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260709T190000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Fore-Site (Phase 3): The Stamps Gallery Pillar Project
DESCRIPTION:From September 2025 through August 2026\, Stamps Gallery is partnering in a curatorial collaboration with two Ypsilanti-based\, artist-run project spaces led by Stamps alumni: C.Y.N.K. Studios\, directed by Sally Clegg (Lecturer III and Student Exhibition Coordinator\, MFA ’20) and Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20)\; and Sometimes Space\, directed by Nathan Byrne (Lecturer I\, MFA ’21). Each space hosts dozens of artists annually for exhibitions\, performances\, and events\, fostering experimental work and building community. For this project\, Byrne\, Clegg\, and Narula have been commissioned to reimagine the pillars on Division Street that flank the gallery. In response\, they've curated six artists to create new work for the pillars over three cycles:\nPhase 1 (September 12 - December 12) artists: Amelia Burns (Cranbrook MFA '23) and Erin McKenna (MFA '20)Phase 2 (January 12 - April 12) artists: Sally Clegg (MFA '20) and Kim Karlsrud (MFA '20)Phase 3 (May 12 - August 12) artists: Abhishek Narula (MFA '20) and Nathan Byrne (MFA '21)\nPhase 3 \nCurated by Sometimes Space: Abhishek Narula (entry pillar)Curated by CYNK Studios: Nathan Byrne (courtyard pillar)
UID:138033-21881360@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/138033
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260608T121514
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260709T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260709T170000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Community Exhibition: A Kaleidoscope of Emotions
DESCRIPTION:\n\nCurated by The Visual Arts Council of Neutral Zone\n\nStamps Gallery is pleased to partner with Neutral Zone’s Visual Arts Council to present A Kaleidoscope of Emotions\, an exhibition featuring artwork of local teens from Ann Arbor. The exhibition explores the interwoven relationship of color to human emotions. 
UID:148601-21904503@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/148601
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260608T121512
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260709T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260709T170000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Marianetta Porter: Breath\, Fragment\, Return
DESCRIPTION:\n\nCurated by Juana Williams\, this exhibition examines how Marianetta Porter uses everyday objects\, fragments\, and embodied memory to make absence an active\, living presence while challenging linear histories. Rooted in African American experience\, her practice treats what is discarded\, overlooked\, or missing not as loss\, but as a source of meaning that continues to act on the present. Through her process and materials\, Porter reveals how memory is carried in the body and embedded in ordinary things. Her work also resists forward-moving notions of time\, instead presenting a diasporic temporality in which past\, present\, and lived experience circulate together through repetition\, touch\, and recall. In doing so\, Porter proposes a vision of history as unfinished\, memory as active\, and absence as a force that sustains connection and shapes the present. \n\nMarianetta Porter is a visual artist and product designer whose research and creative practice are grounded in the study of African American history\, culture\, and representation. Through the language of visual art\, she draws connections between historic memory and contemporary African American life\, giving voice to the history of the African diaspora while acknowledging its central influence on the birth and flourishing of American culture.\n\nHer work has been exhibited nationally at institutions such as the Indianapolis Museum of Art\, the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry\, the Spoleto Festival\, the Harriet Tubman Museum\, and the Hampton University Museum of Art.\n\nShe earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts from Hampton University and her Master of Fine Arts from the University of Michigan. The recipient of numerous awards\, Porter is Professor Emeritus at the University of Michigan’s Stamps School of Art and Design.\n\nJuana Williams is a curator and writer whose work explores the intersections of cross-border intellectual history\, cultural memory\, and identity formation as expressed through modern and contemporary art from Africa and its diasporas.\n\nWilliams has held curatorial and academic appointments at organizations including the Detroit Institute of Arts\, Library Street Collective\, Wayne State University\, and the Urban Institute for Contemporary Art. Her curatorial projects have been presented at institutions across the United States and France\, including the Grand Rapids Art Museum\, the Muskegon Museum of Art\, Palais de Tokyo (Paris)\, and the Westmoreland Museum of American Art. In addition\, she has presented lectures at various museums and universities and contributed to numerous exhibition catalogs. Her work has been written about in publications such as Artsy\, Beaux Arts Magazine\, Condé Nast Traveller\, Michigan Chronicle\, and Observer. Williams holds a BA in Fine Art and an MA in Art History from Wayne State University.
UID:147625-21901391@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/147625
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260608T121516
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260709T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260709T180000
SUMMARY:Reception / Open House:Opening Reception: A Kaleidoscope of Emotions
DESCRIPTION:\n\nOn Thursday\, July 9\, join us from 4-6 p.m. for the opening reception of A Kaleidoscope of Emotions.\n\nStamps Gallery is pleased to partner with Neutral Zone’s Visual Arts Council to present an exhibition featuring artwork of local teens from Ann Arbor. The exhibition explores the interwoven relationship of color to human emotions.
UID:148602-21904514@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/148602
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260421T085257
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260710T090000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260710T170000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Debbie Thompson Exhibition
DESCRIPTION:Debbie Thompson works predominantly in clay and draws inspiration from the natural world\, which she frequently references in her work. Her interest in ceramics began in high school when she took classes at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills\, Michigan. She later pursued her passion at the University of Michigan School of Art and Design\, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts. She also holds a Master of Arts from Eastern Michigan University and has completed post-graduate studio coursework at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago\, Maryland Institute College of Art\, Rhode Island School of Design\, and Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts.\n\nThompson taught visual art in the Ann Arbor Public Schools for 34 years and has also taught at the University of Michigan School of Education and Washtenaw Community College. She exhibits her work both locally and nationally and was a member of the Clay Gallery. She continues her practice in her home studio and at the Potters Guild in Ann Arbor\, Michigan. She is a member of the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts and the Michigan Ceramic Art Association. Her work is included in the permanent collection of the International Dinnerware Museum.\n\nThompson’s work has been inspired by the natural world since childhood. Although she initially studied biology in college\, she later shifted her focus to visual art. The textures\, colors\, and forms in her pieces are drawn directly from nature.\nSeeds—structures that have enabled plants to move through space and time for over 600 million years—are central to her recent work. They are vital to the continuation of plant life\, and therefore to human survival.\n\nIn this exhibition\, Thompson explores the unseen structures of seeds as revealed through electron microscopy. These images highlight the intricate beauty and ingenuity of nature\, which she interprets through her wall-mounted ceramic sculptures.\n\nAt a time when our planet and its ecosystems face increasing threats\, Thompson’s work serves as a reminder of the importance of preserving the natural world. Recognizing the beauty and significance of these often-unseen forms is a crucial first step toward protecting the life systems on which we all depend.
UID:147884-21902273@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/147884
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:North Campus Research Complex Building 18 - Connection Gallery
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260511T181505
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260710T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260710T190000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Fore-Site (Phase 2): The Stamps Gallery Pillar Project
DESCRIPTION:\n\nFrom September 2025 through November 2026\, Stamps Gallery is partnering in a curatorial collaboration with two Ypsilanti-based\, artist-run project spaces led by Stamps alumni: C.Y.N.K. Studios\, directed by Sally Clegg (Lecturer III and Student Exhibition Coordinator\, MFA ’20) and Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20)\; and Sometimes Space\, directed by Nathan Byrne (Lecturer I\, MFA ’21). Each space hosts dozens of artists annually for exhibitions\, performances\, and events\, fostering experimental work and building community. For this project\, Byrne\, Clegg\, and Narula have been commissioned to reimagine the pillars on Division Street that flank the gallery. In response\, they’ve curated six artists to create new work for the pillars over three cycles:\n\nPhase 1 (September 12 - December 12) artists: Amelia Burns (Cranbrook MFA ’23) and Erin McKenna (MFA ’20)\nPhase 2 (January 12 - August 12) artists: Sally Clegg (MFA ’20) and Kim Karlsrud (MFA ’20)\nPhase 3 (September 12 - November 12) artists: Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20) and Nathan Byrne (MFA ’21)\nPhase 2 Curatorial Statement\n\nCurated by Sometimes Space: Sally Clegg (entry pillar)\nCurated by CYNK Studios: Kim Karlsrud (courtyard pillar)\n\nArtists Sally Clegg and Kim Karlsrud wrap the Division Street pillars in highly site-specific ornament unearthed from the overlooked margins of Ann Arbor. On the Courtyard pillar\, Karlsrud scales up photographs of objects found in liminal spaces surrounding campus buildings on Green Road\, which the artist has encrusted in road salt. On the entryway pillar\, Clegg zooms in on tiny fragments of found material from UMich’s famous “rock” to celebrate nearly seven decades of student art and activism. Both artists uplift aggregate of local human activity to reveal tiny worlds of found form. \n\nSally Clegg: Sentimentary Rock\nSentimentary Rock is a composition of paint slag collected from the UMich rock monument at the corner of Washtenaw Avenue and Hill Street. This colorful composite material has been accumulating at the base of the iconic limestone boulder since the mid 1950’s\, when students began a tradition of painting it in acts of protest\, creativity\, and ritual\, sometimes multiple times per week. Akin to byproducts of industry such as “Fordite” (collectable chunks of automotive overspray sometimes called ‘Detroit agate’)\, Sentimentary Rock includes thousands of layers\, each dripped from a palimpsestic public proclamation. When processed\, sculpted\, sealed\, assembled\, and macro-photographed\, the result is this enlarged array of tiny gems\, intended to celebrate the indissoluble student voice. \n\nKim Karlsrud: What Amasses\nWhat Amasses is an assemblage of everyday found objects collected within the Miller Creek watershed\, an urbanized drainage system that encompasses much of the city of Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan campus. Selected objects were immersed in a road salt solution\, allowing delicate crystalline formations to emerge. Road salt is a common material input into these hydrological networks during the winter months and exists in multiple states of refinement\, expression\, coherence\, and fragmentation. Each object was then arranged\, photographed\, and enlarged to recontextualize these materials in ways that invite deeper reflections on how infrastructure and human agency blur notions of the natural and the artificial. \nArtist Statements/Bios\n\nSally Clegg \nSally Clegg is an artist and educator from Pelham\, Massachusetts. Her studio practice is rooted in sculpture and expanded printmaking\, stemming from a fascination with human efforts to make meaning from our relationships to objects. Clegg integrates history\, popular culture\, literature and philosophy as material for artmaking\, leveraging personal anecdote and humor to reveal the complexity\, absurdity\, and theoretical richness at play in our connections to things and to ourselves. \n\nClegg holds an MFA in Art from The University of Michigan Stamps School of Art & Design\, and a BA in Art & English from Goucher College. She has exhibited nationally and internationally\, and her work can be found in permanent collections at Yale University\, The New York Public Library\, and elsewhere. Her artwork and writing has appeared in ASAP/Journal\, BOMB Magazine\, Sculpture Magazine\, and Hyperallergic. She is a lecturer in Art & Design at the University of Michigan. Website / Instagram\n\n\nKim Karlsrud \nKim Karlsrud is the co-founder of Commonstudio\, a collaborative creative practice that develops socio-ecological and spatial interventions\, installations\, and initiatives working with and within urban landscapes. Her work explores the space between art and design\, and is grounded in the concept of the “commons\,” that which is shared\, as well as that which is ordinary\, banal\, and commonplace.\n\nKarlsrud completed her undergraduate degree in Product Design from Otis College of Art and Design and an MFA in Art from the University of Michigan. She is currently an Assistant Visiting Professor in the College of Design at the University of Oregon\, teaching across Art and Landscape Architecture departments. She jointly received the 2014-15 Prince Charitable Trust Rome Prize in Landscape Architecture\, was a 2017 resident at the Headlands Center for the Arts\, and is the 2025-26 Fuller Fieldscape Fellow. Website / Instagram
UID:138032-21903405@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/138032
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20250828T001529
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260710T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260710T190000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Fore-Site (Phase 3): The Stamps Gallery Pillar Project
DESCRIPTION:From September 2025 through August 2026\, Stamps Gallery is partnering in a curatorial collaboration with two Ypsilanti-based\, artist-run project spaces led by Stamps alumni: C.Y.N.K. Studios\, directed by Sally Clegg (Lecturer III and Student Exhibition Coordinator\, MFA ’20) and Abhishek Narula (MFA ’20)\; and Sometimes Space\, directed by Nathan Byrne (Lecturer I\, MFA ’21). Each space hosts dozens of artists annually for exhibitions\, performances\, and events\, fostering experimental work and building community. For this project\, Byrne\, Clegg\, and Narula have been commissioned to reimagine the pillars on Division Street that flank the gallery. In response\, they've curated six artists to create new work for the pillars over three cycles:\nPhase 1 (September 12 - December 12) artists: Amelia Burns (Cranbrook MFA '23) and Erin McKenna (MFA '20)Phase 2 (January 12 - April 12) artists: Sally Clegg (MFA '20) and Kim Karlsrud (MFA '20)Phase 3 (May 12 - August 12) artists: Abhishek Narula (MFA '20) and Nathan Byrne (MFA '21)\nPhase 3 \nCurated by Sometimes Space: Abhishek Narula (entry pillar)Curated by CYNK Studios: Nathan Byrne (courtyard pillar)
UID:138033-21881361@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/138033
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260608T121514
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260710T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260710T170000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Community Exhibition: A Kaleidoscope of Emotions
DESCRIPTION:\n\nCurated by The Visual Arts Council of Neutral Zone\n\nStamps Gallery is pleased to partner with Neutral Zone’s Visual Arts Council to present A Kaleidoscope of Emotions\, an exhibition featuring artwork of local teens from Ann Arbor. The exhibition explores the interwoven relationship of color to human emotions. 
UID:148601-21904504@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/148601
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260608T121512
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260710T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260710T170000
SUMMARY:Exhibition:Marianetta Porter: Breath\, Fragment\, Return
DESCRIPTION:\n\nCurated by Juana Williams\, this exhibition examines how Marianetta Porter uses everyday objects\, fragments\, and embodied memory to make absence an active\, living presence while challenging linear histories. Rooted in African American experience\, her practice treats what is discarded\, overlooked\, or missing not as loss\, but as a source of meaning that continues to act on the present. Through her process and materials\, Porter reveals how memory is carried in the body and embedded in ordinary things. Her work also resists forward-moving notions of time\, instead presenting a diasporic temporality in which past\, present\, and lived experience circulate together through repetition\, touch\, and recall. In doing so\, Porter proposes a vision of history as unfinished\, memory as active\, and absence as a force that sustains connection and shapes the present. \n\nMarianetta Porter is a visual artist and product designer whose research and creative practice are grounded in the study of African American history\, culture\, and representation. Through the language of visual art\, she draws connections between historic memory and contemporary African American life\, giving voice to the history of the African diaspora while acknowledging its central influence on the birth and flourishing of American culture.\n\nHer work has been exhibited nationally at institutions such as the Indianapolis Museum of Art\, the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry\, the Spoleto Festival\, the Harriet Tubman Museum\, and the Hampton University Museum of Art.\n\nShe earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts from Hampton University and her Master of Fine Arts from the University of Michigan. The recipient of numerous awards\, Porter is Professor Emeritus at the University of Michigan’s Stamps School of Art and Design.\n\nJuana Williams is a curator and writer whose work explores the intersections of cross-border intellectual history\, cultural memory\, and identity formation as expressed through modern and contemporary art from Africa and its diasporas.\n\nWilliams has held curatorial and academic appointments at organizations including the Detroit Institute of Arts\, Library Street Collective\, Wayne State University\, and the Urban Institute for Contemporary Art. Her curatorial projects have been presented at institutions across the United States and France\, including the Grand Rapids Art Museum\, the Muskegon Museum of Art\, Palais de Tokyo (Paris)\, and the Westmoreland Museum of American Art. In addition\, she has presented lectures at various museums and universities and contributed to numerous exhibition catalogs. Her work has been written about in publications such as Artsy\, Beaux Arts Magazine\, Condé Nast Traveller\, Michigan Chronicle\, and Observer. Williams holds a BA in Fine Art and an MA in Art History from Wayne State University.
UID:147625-21901392@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/147625
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Art
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR