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Join us November 6-9, 2024 in Birmingham, AL for the 2024 MSA Conference!
We're excited to offer a range of programing and opportunities, including Keynote speaker, Vanessa German, who will share insights into mixed-media sculpture and contemporary African-American art, offering a unique lens often marginalized in broader discussions. Guest speaker, Jiha Moon will give a lecture at the Birmingham Museum of Art and share her experience exploring fluid identities and the global movement of people and their cultures. Guest speaker, George Ferrandi's experience with performance art is a welcome addition, as she jurors the performance exhibition held at Sloss Furnaces National Historic Landmark during the conference.
Packed with lectures, panels, workshops, demos and exhibition opportunities, the 2024 MSA Conference is a chance to meet, explore, create and connect with MSA members and the Birmingham community.
For detailed information on programming, visit the Conference webpage at https://www.midsouthsculpture.org/Conference2024.
Silent Auction Saturday, November 9th during the closing party at TrimTab Brewing Co.
Bring memorabilia, materials, tools, and artwork to be auctioned off.
Proceeds benefit the Scholarship fund.
CONFERENCE SCHEDULE
(subject to change)
2024 MSA Birmingham Conference Schedule
Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2024
8am-3:30pm
Drop off for Exhibitions:
Momentary Signals @ Sloss Furnaces National Historic Landmark (Visitors Center)
Student Pop-Up @ UAB 2300 Studios
Board of Directors Exhibition@ Sloss Furnaces National Historic Landmark (Power House)
9am-11am
Exploring the Intersection of Art, Science, and Marine Conservation Using Algal Biomass Waste Workshop @ UAB Sculpture (Hulsey Center Room 120)
12-3pm
Creative Glass Fusing: Crafting Unique Fused Glass Art Workshop @ UAB Sculpture (Hulsey Center Room 120)
4-5:30pm
Welcome reception @ UAB Abroms-Engel Institute for the Visual Arts (Auditorium)
Remarks with Birmingham Poet Salaam Green (refreshments provided)
Registration Desk open
Quiet Room upstairs in room 204
5:30-6pm
Tour of UAB Sculpture Facilities (Hulsey Center Room 120 & Room 106)
6-8pm
Tour of UAB Department of Art & Art History’s 501 Building
2024 Dianne Komminsk Scholarship Exhibition Closing Reception in ArtLab
Quiet Room in Wellness Room
Thursday, Nov. 7, 2024
7am-12pm
Registration Desk @ Hilton Birmingham at UAB Foyer
7-8am
Welcome Breakfast @ Hilton Birmingham at UAB Foyer
8-9:30am
Reimagining Memory: Public Art and the American Monument Question Panel in Hilton Hamilton I
3D Sand Printing 101 Presentation in Hilton Skipwith I
VR 3D Modeling Demo in Hilton Montgomery
Info tables in Hilton University
Quiet Room in Hilton Magic City Boardroom
10-11:30am
Voices Reclaimed: Art, History, and Activism in the American South Panel in Hilton Hamilton I
What’s in the Box: Crating Artwork Presentation in Hilton Skipwith I
Info tables in Hilton University
Quiet Room in Hilton Magic City Boardroom
12-1:30pm
Dine Around Lunch (Info at the registration desk)
2-5pm
Registration Desk @ Sloss Furnaces National Historic Landmark (Visitors Center)
2-3:30pm
Iron Pour Workshop (2-5pm - Shed 2)
Pouring Pewter: Quick Cast Metal Demo @ Sloss Furnaces National Historic Landmark (Shed 2)
Fire Arts + Placemaking Redux @ Sloss Furnaces National Historic Landmark (West Room)
Quiet Room in Sloss Furnaces National Historic Landmark (Bath House)
4-5:30pm
Iron Pour Workshop (2-5pm - Shed 2)
USG Plaster Demo @ Sloss Furnaces National Historic Landmark (Shed 2)
Quiet Room in Sloss Furnaces National Historic Landmark (Bath House)
6-7pm
Guest Lecture and jurors talk by George Ferrandi @ Sloss Furnaces (West Room)
7-9pm
Momentary Signals: An MSA Exhibition of Performance reception @ Sloss Furnaces National Historic Landmark (Visitors Center)
Board of Directors Exhibitionreception @ Sloss Furnaces National Historic Landmark (Power House)
Quiet Room in Sloss Furnaces National Historic Landmark (Bath House)
Food trucks @ Sloss Furnaces National Historic Landmark - Saw’s BBQ, Off Beat, & Ono Ice
Friday, Nov. 8, 2024
Breakfast on your own
7am-5pm
Registration Desk @ Hilton Birmingham at UAB Foyer
8-9:30am
The Strength of Fragility: Exploration of Forms and Materials in Sculpture Panel in Hilton Hamilton I
Unfinished, Unrealized, and Impossible (For Now): Brainstorming Sculptures for the Future in Hilton Skipwith I
What’s in the Box: Crating Artwork Demo in Hilton Montgomery
Info tables in Hilton University
Quiet Room in Hilton Magic City Boardroom
10-11:30am
The Cast Component: Orienting an Element within a System Panel in Hilton Hamilton I
Reuse, Reinvent, Repeat: Repurposed Materials in Sculpture Panel in Hilton Skipwith I
Info tables in Hilton University
Quiet Room in Hilton Magic City Boardroom
12-1:30pm
Members Meeting Lunch @ Hilton Hamilton I (pre-paid on registration website)
2-3:30pm
Student Scholarship Presentations in Hilton in Skipworth Ballroom
Info tables in Hilton University
Quiet Room in Hilton Magic City Boardroom
4-5pm
KeynoteVanessa German Lecture @ Hilton Hamilton I
Dinner on your own (Light refreshments will be provided at the galleries below)
6-9pm
Gallery Hopping Night (Buses provided by UAB):
Alabama School of Fine Arts – 2024 MSA Select, Birmingham juried by Vanessa German
Ground Floor Contemporary – Sarah Jeanne Adkins, Elaine Farley Kinnard, Tara Stallworth Lee
Space One Eleven Arts Center- Solidarity
Scott Miller Projects – Vanessa German
9pm
Student/Young Artists Hang @ Monday Night Brewing
Saturday, Nov. 9, 2024
Breakfast on your own
Birmingham Day Option:
8-11:30am
Morning Outdoor Exhibitions walk and talks at Sloss & AEIVA
Engaged: Sculpture as Catalyst for Social Change @ Sloss Furnaces (Sculpture Courtyard)
The Feeling is Monumental @ UAB Abroms-Engel Institute for the Visual Arts (Sculpture Courtyard)
2-4:30pm
Afternoon Sightseeing/Local Studio Visits
Millsap Studios – 6608 Oporto Madrid Blvd. S., Birmingham, AL 35206
Birmingham Sculpture Studio & Christopher Fennell Studios – Wade Sand & Gravel Co.,
1200 10th St. W., Birmingham, Al 35204 (once at gate, someone will guide you to the studios)
Tour 1 - bronze pour 2-3pm
Tour 2 – studio 3:30-4:30pm
2300 Open Faculty Studios & Student Pop-up Exhibition, 2300 7th Ave. S., Birmingham, AL 35233
Montgomery Day Option:
Bus to Peace & Justice Memorial & Freedom Monument Sculpture, Montgomery
7:45am
Arrive & Load bus @ Hilton Birmingham at UAB Lobby
8am
Depart for Klein Wallace House - 36799-36401 AL-25, Harpersville, AL 35078
est. 8:45am
Arrive & Unload
9-10am - Tour
10:15am
Load & Depart for Peace & Justice Memorial - 414 Caroline St, Montgomery, AL 36104
11:30am
Arrive & Unload @ Peace & Justice Memorial
11:30am-1:30pm
Tour & Lunch
1:45pm - Load and depart for Freedom Monument Sculpture Park - 831 Walker St, Montgomery, AL 36104
2pm
Arrive & Unload @ Freedom Monument Sculpture Park
2-3pm
Tour
3pm
Load & Depart for Hilton Birmingham at UAB
4:30-5pm
Arrive & Unload at Hilton Birmingham at UAB
5-6pm
Birmingham Museum of Art - open galleries
6-7pm
Guest Lecture by Jiha Moon @ Birmingham Museum of Art (Auditorium)
7-9pm
Masters Award Dinner @ Birmingham Museum of Art (Oscar’s Café)
9-11pm
TrimTab Brewing Co. evening final hang and Student Scholarship Silent Auction
Sunday, Nov. 10, 2024
7am-2pm
Exhibition pick up
Momentary Signals @ Sloss Furnaces National Historic Landmark (Visitors Center)
Student Pop-Up @ UAB 2300 Studios
Board of Directors Exhibition@ Sloss Furnaces National Historic Landmark (Power House)
2024 Diane Komminsk Scholarship Exhibition @ UAB 501 Building in ArtLab
ABOUT CONFERENCE 2024
Conference 2024 will be an incredible event filled to the brim with multiple indoor and outdoor exhibitions, a student pop-up show, and a juried performance exhibition. We look forward to immersive workshops, informative demos, and lively conversation during the panel discussions.
We're excited to offer programming at Sloss Furnaces National Historic Landmark and a night of gallery hopping around Birmingham. Our Conference hotel, the UAB Hilton, provides a free shuttle service to and from the airport and is located within walking distance to dining options.
Keynote Speaker Vanessa German
We are thrilled to announce the confirmation of Vanessa German as our Keynote Speaker at the 2024 MSA Conference in Birmingham, AL!
Vanessa German is a self-taught citizen artist working across sculpture, performance, communal rituals, immersive installation, and photography, in order to repair and reshape disrupted systems, spaces, and connections. Her practice proposes new models for social healing, utilizing creativity and tenderness as vital forces to reckon with the historical and ongoing catastrophes of structural racism, white supremacy, heteropatriarchy, resource extraction, and misogynoir.
Vanessa will share insights into mixed-media sculpture and contemporary African-American art, offering a unique lens often marginalized in broader discussions.
Guest Speaker Jiha Moon
Jiha Moon is from Daegu, South Korea, and currently lives and works in Tallahassee, Florida. Moon's gestural paintings, ceramic sculptures, and installations explore fluid identities and the global movement of people and their cultures. She says, “I am a cartographer of cultures and an icon maker in my lucid worlds.” She is taking cues from a wide range of history of Eastern and Western art, colors and designs from popular culture, Korean temple paintings and folk art, internet emoticons and icons, and labels of products from all over the place. She often teases and changes these lexicons so that they are hard to identify yet stay in a familiar zone.
Moon's work has been acquired by museums around the country including The Asia Society, The High Museum of Art, The Mint Museum of Art, The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Renwick Gallery, and The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. She is the recipient of the Guggenheim award and Joan Mitchell Foundation’s Painter and Sculptor’s award, and her mid-career survey exhibition, “Double Welcome: Most Everyone’s Mad Here,” organized by Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art and Taubman Museum, has toured more than 15 museums around the country. Moon is an Assistant Professor in the Art department at Florida State University.
Guest Speaker George Ferrandi
George Ferrandi is an American artist whose performance, installation and participatory projects address issues of vulnerability, impermanence, fallibility and spectacle, often through experimental approaches to narrative. Employing a unique humor and deep sense of humanity, her work ranges in form and scale from simple gestures–like resting her head on the shoulder of a stranger on the subway, to giant spectacles–like parading with hundreds of people through the streets of South Philly. It’s often a collaborative experiment in story-telling, with participants becoming performers in the narrative or even creating it.