Sheila Pepe is best known for her large-scale, ephemeral installations and sculpture made from domestic and industrial materials. Since the mid-1990s Pepe has used feminist and craft traditions to investigate received notions concerning the production of canonical artwork as well as the artist’s relationship to museum display and the art institution itself. She lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Learn more here.

Blackbird Artist Collective, led by artist and educator Colby Brewer, is a group of young aspiring artists (Haosheng Wang, Kevin Zhang, Tony Wang, Madeline Cassell, Mia James, Lucza Brewer, Arissa Jenn, Kaylee Kim, Xiomara Zavala). The group was formed as a vehicle for Brewer and his students to collaborate with renowned contemporary artists to conduct research and produce new work as collaborative teams. The group works within the framework of an expanded artist in residence program, hosted by The Waterford School, which allows students to engage in making new visual art as new knowledge, informed by inquiries in many fields and the liberal arts principle of integrated truth, as well as critical looking and thinking.

Pepe and the B.A.C. worked together from October 2021 to March 2022, through an intensive series of games, rule sets, and material explorations resulting in new multi-media installation work on display at UMOCA from March 25 through May 10. Please join us at UMOCA for the exhibition opening and an artist panel discussion with Sheila Pepe and B.A.C. on Friday March 25th from 7pm – 9pm.