Papermaking for a Livable Future with Hannah Chalew
TUESDAY, MARCH 5, 2024 1:00 - 2:00 PM EST
Drawing on the history of her South Louisiana landscape, Hannah Chalew creates artwork using “plasticane” paper: an amalgamation of bagasse, the waste product of sugarcane production, and shredded disposable plastic waste, the byproduct of fossil fuel extraction. Examining the influences of capitalism and racism on the exploitation of Louisiana’s people and ecologies, including the legacy of forced labor plantations and fossil fuel extraction, burning and refining, Chalew uses “plasticane” to hold the history of how we got to this moment in time and to create visions of a future our descendants might inherit if we do not change course.
In this talk, Chalew will describe her artistic practice in traditional drawing and dimensional papermaking as a means towards imagining a different future through art. By using renewable materials from her local ecosystem, Chalew offers an alternate perspective on how we can relate to our world, inviting viewers to rethink how we can break the cycles we are stuck in and imagine a livable future for Louisiana and beyond.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Hannah Chalew is an artist, educator and environmental activist raised and currently working in New Orleans. She received her BA from Brandeis University in 2009, and her MFA from the Cranbrook Academy of Art in 2016. Chalew has exhibited widely around New Orleans and has shown around the country at the Laumeier Sculpture Park, St. Louis, MO; Wave Hill Public Garden and Cultural Center, Bronx, NY; Minnesota Center for the Book Arts, Minneapolis, MN; Dieu Donné, New York, NY; Asheville Museum of Art, Asheville, NC, and other venues. Her work has been featured in American Craft, Hand Papermaking, the New York Times, BOMB, Hyperallergic, Burnaway, the LA Times, the Boston Globe, and more. Her work is held in the collections of the City of New Orleans and the Ogden Museum of Southern Art. She is the 2022 South Arts Southern Prize winner as well as the South Arts Louisiana State Fellow.