Holding Sway: PNCA Faculty Alumni Exhibition
August 20, 2015
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 20, 2015
CONTACT:
Lisa Radon
Communications Manager
lradon@pnca.edu
Holding Sway: PNCA Faculty Alumni Exhibition
Portland, OR — August 20, 2015 – With the first Pacific Northwest College of Art faculty biennial to be held in our newly renovated historic Federal Building at 511 NW Broadway, PNCA sought to do something that would not only highlight the artists, designers, and scholars who make up the faculty, but also showcase the scope of contemporary art, craft, and design created by alumni from PNCA’s Bachelor of Fine Arts and Masters of Fine Arts programs. The result is the first ever PNCA faculty and alumni exhibition titled Holding Sway, opening September 3, 2015 and running through October 18, 2015. Work by 41 faculty members and 31 alumni including installation, painting, videos, and sculpture will be installed in PNCA’s central Atrium.
As in other faculty exhibitions of the recent past, PNCA’s educators present self-selected works to the faculty exhibition committee who then create the final checklist for the exhibition. For the selection of alumni work, PNCA issued a call for works which were then presented to faculty members in the exhibition who each selected the work of an alumnus or alumna to be included in Holding Sway.
In the development of this exhibition, Mack McFarland, Curator and Director of Exhibitions, noted that the phrase “to hold sway” was raised to refer to the ways the flow of learning, teaching, and influence runs both ways in the classroom, studio, and lab. McFarland recalls that recently retired faculty member, printmaker Tom Prochaska would say, “In the studio we are all exercising together.”
Accompanying Holding Sway is a companion publication featuring fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and criticism by PNCA faculty and alumni.
This exhibition was supported by The Ford Family Foundation.
About PNCA
As Oregon’s flagship college of art and design since 1909, PNCA has helped shape the region’s visual arts landscape for more than a century. Today PNCA is a dynamic platform for 21st century art and design education at its new campus in the heart of downtown Portland. PNCA offers four BFA programs with ten concentrations, six graduate programs within the Hallie Ford School of Graduate Studies, and a Post-Baccalaureate program.