School of Visual Arts MFA open studios weekend

SchacichSarah.jpg


We visited the two floors of the School of Visual Arts MFA open studios event last weekend where Sarah Schich was projecting a small moving image onto one wall of her darkened studio. The walls were all shingled with seriously-blank sheets of white typewriter paper. Across from the "screen" and also just above the floor, lit by one dim bare bulb hanging from the ceiling, was a typed list of names pinned to the wall.

Sylvia Plath

Edgar Allen Poe

Anne Sexton

Michel Foucault

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Yukio Mishima


The little lantern relayed a looped series of six short animated videos illustrating the story of the deaths of six famous writers.

The image above is a still from the story, by the author's own account, of the social circumstances in which Michel Foucault contracted the disease, HIV, which eventually caused his death.

I know this may sound weird and probably disrespectful, but the animations are graceful, beautiful, and absolutely charming.