A.K. Burns: Leave No Trace

Burns will play her new sound work, Leave No Trace, a two-track vinyl record of a mix of ambient environmental recordings and electric guitar. Following will be a conversation with artist Taylor Davis.

The record and featured poem describe a timeline of inventions in recreational equipment and provides an opportunity to examine the connection between nature and technology. The title referencing wilderness ethics more importantly points to notions of wildness and unregulated spaces, what is natural or naturalized—both the privilege and subjugation of bodies and actions that go unrecorded.

This event is in collaboration with Burns's exhibition, No Time, No Place, No Body, organized by the Radcliffe Institute Fellowship Program. The exhibition is on view from Mar 22–Apr 8, 2017 in the Johnson-Kulukundis Family Gallery. There will be special gallery hours from 12–7 pm on the day of the event.

A.K. Burns

A.K. Burns is an interdisciplinary artist and educator residing in Brooklyn, NY. Currently a 2016-17 Radcliffe Fellow at Harvard University, Burns is developing a long term project—a cycle of multi-media installations that take speculative fiction as a point of departure. This work is additionally supported by a 2015 Creative Capital Foundation Visual Arts Award and the Spring 2017 Research & Development Season at the New Museum. The opening episode from this cycle of works, A Smeary Spot, debut at Participant Inc, NY in the Fall of 2015. A new iteration is installed at Portland Institute for Contemporary Art in September 2016.

Taylor Davis

Davis has received a Diploma of Fine Arts from School of the Museum of Fine Arts; BS of Ed., Tufts University; M.F.A., Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts at Bard College. Upcoming and recent exhibitions include: The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, The Tang Museum, Dodge Gallery, Office Baroque Gallery, Worchester Art Museum, White Columns, Samson Projects, Exit Art, Triple Candie, Incident Report, and Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston. Davis was included in the Whitney of American Art Biennial 2004, New York. Grants and awards include Radcliffe Fellowship (2010-2011), Anonymous Was a Woman (2009), Association of International Art Critics Award (2007 and 2002); St Botolph Foundation Grant (2003); Institute of Contemporary Art Artist Prize (2001); Massachusetts Cultural Council Grant (1999). Professor at Massachusetts College of Art and Design since 1999, co-chair of sculpture atMilton Avery Graduate School of the Arts at Bard College since 2003, and visiting faculty atDepartment of Visual and Environmental Studies at Harvard University, fall 2008. More >