Artist Lecture: Sina Najafi Editor of Cabinet Magazine April 30
The University of Maine Intermedia MFA program is pleased to announce the sixth presenter, Sina Najafi, for their Spring 2013 Visiting Artist series co-sponsored by the Cultural Affairs/Distinguished Lecture Series and the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. The artist will present a public lecture on Tuesday April 30th at 7pm in 100 Lord Hall on the University of Maine campus in Orono.
Sina Najafi is editor-in-chief at Cabinet Magazine, an award-winning magazine of art and culture, and co-director of Immaterial Incorporated. Since its launch in late 2000, Cabinet magazine has become a touchstone for a certain approach to understanding culture, one that shuns orthodox distinctions–high/low, serious/humorous, professional/amateur–in favor of a commitment to the idea that all objects, practices and discourses can, if read against the grain, teach us something important about the world. Its hybrid sensibility merges the visually engaging style of an arts periodical, the exuberance of a fanzine and the in-depth exploration of a scholarly journal to create a sourcebook of ideas for an international audience of readers, from artists and designers to scientists, philosophers and historians.
Sina Najafi has curated a number of exhibitions and has taught at Cooper Union, Yale, and RISD. Najafi’s most recent book titled Curiosity and Method: Ten Years of Cabinet Magazine is an anthology that brings together some of the most interesting successes, and a few instructive failures, published in the first 40 issues of Cabinet, virtually all of which are sold out, along with essays specially commissioned for the volume.
For more information about the artist visit: http://cabinetmagazine.org/contributors/najafi_sina.php
The Masters of Fine Arts in Intermedia at the University of Maine provides substantial advanced study for individuals interested in interdisciplinary study in the arts. The program emphasizes intensive development of students’ creative and innovative abilities through a diverse engagement with multiple research processes, critical thinking skills and creative production tools and technologies. The visiting artist series supports and reflects the wide variety of disciplines represented by the program including but not limited to, Art, New Media, Theater, Dance, Philosophy, Art History, Engineering, Communications, Media Studies, Music, Psychology, Natural Sciences, and others.
This event is free and open to the public and is sponsored by the Intermedia MFA Program, the New Media Department, the University of Maine Cultural Affairs / Distinguished Lecture Series, the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture and the Alston D. and Ada Lee Correll Professorship in New Media.
For more information contact Bethany Engstrom at bethany.engstrom@umit.maine.edu