Mark Nelson to Present Oct. 8 Lecture for Fay Jones School

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Vestigial Architecture Gallery – Virtual Installation. (Image courtesy of Mark Nelson)

Mark Nelson will present a lecture titled “Constructing Critical Engagement: What Does Installation [Art] Have to do With Interior Design and Architecture?” at 5:30 p.m. Monday, Oct. 8, at Hembree Auditorium (Agricultural, Food, and Life Sciences Building, Room 107E) on the University of Arkansas campus.

Nelson started out as an architect, interior designer and architectural illustrator and practiced professionally for 15 years in the Chicago area. However, his passionate interest is in the relationship between spaces, objects and the human body as mediated by culture. Since entering academia 13 years ago, he has critically examined this relationship in the form of writing, as well as through physical and virtual installation art that often incorporates monumental body parts or body customizing jewelry. 

Nelson is currently professor of design studies as well as faculty director of the Center for Integrative Design, both at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and he recently served as president of the American Society of Architecture Illustrators. His work has been published and shown internationally and has won numerous awards.

Nelson wonders if artists are the only people who can create installation art? While artists easily claim the “art” part of installation art as their own, why can’t interior designers and architects stake a claim on the “installation” part? If compared to both traditional art such as painting and to traditional design, installation art seems to have at least as much in common with interior design as it does with art. There is no reason why designers, without taking anything away from artists, can’t incorporate installation art as a legitimate aspect of design practice, as a pedagogical method, and as a tool for (and an outcome of) research and scholarship. This presentation discusses critical engagement through installation art, using examples of work by interior designers and architects who create installation art, as well as installation artists who engage issues in interior design and architecture.

The public is invited to attend this lecture, which is presented by the Fay Jones School of Architecture.

Admission is free, with limited seating. For more information, contact 479-575-4704 or architecture.uark.edu.