BRATTLEBORO-Vermont artist Amber Paris will lead a conversation about her Brattleboro Museum & Art Center (BMAC) installation, “The Living Room: This Dreaming Earth,” at the museum on Thursday, June 4, at 7 p.m.
“This Dreaming Earth” is a collaborative fiber-art installation that transforms BMAC’s Mary Sommer Room into “a welcoming space for contemplation and creative exchange. Incorporating contributions from local artists, writers, students, and museum visitors, the installation functions not as a static artwork but as a living environment shaped by shared inquiry and engagement,” organizers said in a news release.
“Amber Paris’s artistic practice demonstrates how contemporary art can create space for gathering and connection,” said BMAC Director of Exhibitions Sarah Freeman. “Her museum installation brings together artists, materials, and audiences in ways that feel thoughtful and alive.”
Attendees at the June 4 event will be encouraged to take part in a conversation about socially engaged art, placemaking, humanity’s relationship to the natural world, and “what it means to co-create with artists, spaces, and one another.”
Following the talk, Mel Dawson will lead a participatory grief circle focused on animate kinship and deep-time remembrance. Those who choose to participate will reflect on the human capacity to transform individual and collective grief within a supportive communal framework.
Paris is a Vermont-based artist and social art practitioner whose work spans installation, fiber arts, bookmaking, and painting. A graduate of Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia, she has spent more than a decade developing collaborative community-based projects and residencies throughout New England. In addition to her studio practice, she works as a teaching artist with organizations including The Community Engagement Lab, Art in the Neighborhood, and Main Street Arts.
Dawson facilitates grief circles, rituals, and one-on-one support through her practice, Becoming Resonance. For the past six years, Dawson has trained and apprenticed with mentor Shauna Janz in the practices of Sacred Grief and animate and ancestral connection. She also facilitates grief circles at Southern State Correctional Facility.
Admission is free. Registration is recommended, but walk-ins are welcome. To register, visit brattleboromuseum.org or call 802-257-0124, ext. 101.
This Arts item was submitted to The Commons.