Free and open to the public
Sheryl Oring, Performance of I Wish to Say | 11am-1pm | Rebecca Stafford Student Center Patio
Artist Talk | 4:30-5:30pm | Great Hall Auditorium
Exhibition Opening Reception | 5:30-7:30pm | DiMattio Gallery, Rechnitz Hall
With backgrounds in journalism and fine art, Sheryl Oring began her ongoing project I Wish to Say in 2004 from a concern that many people’s voices were not being heard. She started to take dictation from the public about what they wanted to say to the (next) President. Dressed as a 1960s secretary with a typewriter, she records whatever participants say onto a postcard, making copies with carbon paper. During larger events, a secretarial bank takes dictation. Oring mails the postcards to the White House and exhibits copies. To date she has typed over 4241 postcards. In this artist talk, Oring will discuss I Wish to Say, now in its 20th year, alongside her other socially engaged art projects.
This talk is in connection with the exhibition I Wish That I Had Spoken Only of It All: 20 Years of Sheryl Oring’s I Wish to Say, which is on display in Rechnitz Hall’s DiMattio Gallery for the Fall 2024 semester. A reception and performance of I Wish to Say in the DiMattio Gallery will follow this talk.
About the Artist
Sheryl Oring examines critical social issues through projects that incorporate old and new media to tell stories, examine public opinion, and foster open exchange. Using tools typically employed by journalists (the camera, the typewriter, the pen, the interview, and the archive), she builds on her experience in her former profession to create installations, performances, artist books, and internet-based works that address themes of citizenship, free expression, first amendment rights, story-telling, and activism through art. Oring received her MFA from the University of California at San Diego. She is currently a board member for the National Coalition Against Censorship. She has held several academic positions, most recently serving as the Dean of the School of Art at University of the Arts in Philadelphia.
Oring has shown her work at the O1SJ Biennial; Bryant Park in Manhattan; the Brooklyn Public Library; and the Jewish Museum Berlin. She has also presented work at Art in Odd Places in New York; the Art Prospect festival in St. Petersburg, Russia; Encuentro in São Paolo, Brazil; and the International Symposium on Electronic Art in Dubai. She has completed public art commissions at the San Diego and Tampa International Airports. Collecting institutions include the Library of Congress; Museum of Modern Art; Tate Britain; Bibliothèque nationale de Luxembourg; and many others.
For more information, see: https://www.sheryloring.org/
This exhibition was made possible with funding from the Edna Wright Andrade Fund of the Philadelphia Foundation and from the Diversity Innovation Grant Program coordinated by the Office of the Provost and Intercultural Center at Monmouth University. Thank you also to ArtNOW, the Helen Bennett McMurray Endowed Chair of Social Ethics, and Monmouth University’s Department of Art and Design and Department of Curriculum and Instruction.
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