Material of the Vessel: a Panel Discussion

Material of the Vessel: a Panel Discussion | Wed. Jan. 25, 2023 | 6:30 pm ET | LIVE on ZOOM

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Join us for an evening with Curators from the nation’s leading materials-focused art museums, who will share their thoughts on vessels and their importance to art in the past, present, and future.

Panelists

Carissa Hussong
Carissa Hussong has served as the Executive Director of the Metal Museum since January 2008.  Under her leadership, the Museum has grown and is currently undertaking a major expansion that will not only transform the Museum and the field of metalworking but will also have a significant and lasting impact on Overton Park and the greater Memphis community.  Prior to joining the Metal Museum, Hussong served as the Executive Director of the Urban Art Commission, a Memphis, TN non-profit that manages public art for the City of Memphis and other public and private clients.  Hussong has also worked as an Associate Curator at the Dixon Gallery and Gardens in Memphis, TN, and as a curatorial fellow at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, NY.  Hussong has an M.B.A. from the University of Memphis, a B.A. in English Literature from Boston University, and a B.A. in Art History from the University of Washington.  She has been recognized by the Memphis Business Journal as a Superwoman in Business, Class of 2022 and by the Memphis Flyer as one of 25 Who Shaped Memphis: 1989-2014.  She was the 2005 recipient of the Ellida Fri Leadership Award presented by the YWCA of Greater Memphis and was a 2003 recipient of Memphis Women Magazine’s “50 Women Who Make A Difference,” a 2002 recipient of the Center City Commission’s Vision Award, and one of the 2001 Memphis Business Journal’s “Top 40 Under 40.”

Jennifer-Navva Milliken
Jennifer-Navva Milliken is the Executive Director and Chief Curator for the Center for Art in Wood. Prior to her arrival at the Center, she served as an embedded staff member in international art museums, as an independent curator, and as the founder of a cross-disciplinary art space. Her exhibitions have been presented in museums, art fairs, galleries, and unconventional spaces, and her writings have been included in exhibition catalogues, anthologies, and publications that investigate and critique the intersecting fields of art, craft, and design. With a global perspective, honed through a life split between two continents, she is driven by the extraordinary power of the arts to challenge preconceptions and bridge divides.

Susie Silbert
Susie J. Silbert is the curator of postwar and contemporary glass at The Corning Museum of Glass. Her curatorial practice is expansive, constantly seeking to broaden the definitions of what the material of glass is and can be, with the goal of making the Museum collection reflective of the breadth of artists, makers, and thinkers involved in the medium.

As part of her role at the Museum, Silbert serves as the editor of New Glass Review, an exhibition-in-print designed to provide a snapshot of global glassworking on an annual basis and selects the recipient of the Museum’s Rakow Commission, awarded annually to an artist whose work is not yet in the Museum’s collection. Her international survey exhibition New Glass Now, designed to introduce new audiences and new approaches to glass, debuted in Corning in 2019, before traveling to the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington D.C. and the Toyama Museum of Glass in Toyama, Japan.

Silbert received her BFA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2003, worked as a curator and collaborator at the Mark Peiser Studio in Penland, North Carolina, for four years as well as in a variety of other curatorial positions before and after earning an MA in decorative arts, design history, and material culture from Bard Graduate Center in 2012. She joined The Corning Museum of Glass in 2016.

Jennifer Zwilling
Jennifer Zwilling is the Curator and Director of Artistic Programs. She joined The Clay Studio in 2015 and administers the Resident Artist Program, Exhibitions, The Collection, and the Guest Artist in Residence Program. She earned her BA in History from Ursinus College and MA in Art History from Temple University, Tyler School of Art. Previously, she was Assistant Curator of American Decorative Arts and Contemporary Craft at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Jennifer developed and taught History of Modern Craft at Tyler School of Art for ten years, and has taught and lectured around the world. She represents TCS as a founding Board Member of CraftNOW Philadelphia.

Moderator

Emily Zilber
Emily Zilber’s work directly supports contemporary art and artists, especially those whose practices intersect with craft and design. She is the Director of Curatorial Affairs and Strategic Partnerships at the Wharton Esherick Museum, where she facilitates conversations between contemporary artists and Esherick’s legacy, adjunct faculty at Tyler School of Art and Architecture, and maintains an independent consulting and coaching practice. As Guest Curator at the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum from 2020-2021, she organized the invitational exhibition Forces of Nature and its accompanying catalog. Zilber spent almost a decade as the first Wornick Curator of Contemporary Decorative Arts at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, where she built an integrated curatorial program for craft and design within the museum’s contemporary art department.

This event is free to the public. The Center for Art in Wood interprets, nurtures, and champions creative engagement and expansion of art, craft, and design in wood to enhance the public’s understanding and appreciation of it. A suggested donation of $5 per person enables us to provide programs and exhibitions throughout the year.

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Questions? Please contact Katie Sorenson, Director of Outreach and Communications, at [email protected].