Ellie Ga at Bryn Mawr College
Artist Ellie Ga began an artist residency at Bryn Mawr College in 2020, just as in-person activities were halted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Her residency has expanded into ongoing presentations, interviews, research, and eventually in-person collaborations with our campus community ever since. Key events co-sponsored by Special Collections and the Center for Visual Culture are listed below with links to enable asynchronous participation.
Events
| Summer 2020 | Conversation with Ga's Gallery Representative Gabrielle Giattino | |
| March 10, 2021 12:30 - 2pm |
recorded conversation | Strophe: A Screening and Studio Visit with Ellie Ga Conversation to follow: Exploring Themes of History and Memory with Madhavi Kale and Lisa Saltzman |
| April 16, 2021 12noon - 1pm |
recorded conversation | Women in Archaeology at BMC Conversation between Ellie Ga and Camilla MacKay |
| May 4, 2021 12:30 - 2pm |
recorded conversation | Teach-In: Legacies of Colonialism in the Mineral Collections of BMC Conversation between Ellie Ga and Selby Cull Hearth, facilitated by Special Collections staff |
| October 18, 2021 - December 16, 2022 | Exhibition in 2nd Floor Coombe Suite, Canaday Library | Introducing Ellie Ga Features recent acquisitions of artwork and artist's books by Ellie Ga, as well as selections from Special Collections discussed in our (virtual) conversation series |
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November 5, 2021 |
Curators' Tour in 2nd Floor Coombe Suite, Canaday Library |
Introducing Ellie Ga, Friday Finds Event |
| November 28 - December 11, 2022 | In-Person Research, class visits, public program | Engagement with students in 360 (Minerals & Museums) and Graduate Group Seminar (History and Memory) |
| December 4, 2022 11am - 1pm |
Screening at Bryn Mawr Film Institute |
Quarries |
| November 12-13, 2023 | Class visit, in-person research | Discussion of Catalogue of the Lost with students in HART 275 |
| April 1-3, 2024 | Class visit, in-person research | Discussion of Catalogue of the Lost with students in HART 235; artist's reception |
| March 24 - April 4, 2025 | In-Person Research, class visits |
Ellie Ga (b. 1976) is an American artist living in Portugal. Her work is included in collections at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Whitney Museum of American Art, and Bard College. Her recent work, Gyres 1-3 (2019), was a commission for the Whitney Biennial and was reviewed in The New York Times and Artnews. Art historian Tom McDonough (SUNY-Binghamton) wrote about it for the fall 2019 issue of Osmos Magazine.
Ga works between memoir, travelogue, and visual essay connecting ideas and presenting them as multichannel videos or performances with live narration. Gyres 1-3 (2019) looks at water as the site of political exile, religious pilgrimage, and forced migration across the Aegean Sea. Her working process is a kind of “beach-combing” that embraces chance encounter with artifacts and how they find their way to her. It involves extended periods of research, including conversations with people in roles, such as museum directors, scholars, Arctic explorers. Her interests are interdisciplinary and cross-temporal. She speaks of her work as a collection of chance encounters, what is lost (and accrued) in translating between spoken and written words, and archaeological discovery.
Ga's residency at Bryn Mawr College allows her to "comb" special collections, conduct archival research, and engage in conversations, all in the process of producing a new project, commissioned by the College.
Contacts: Matt Feliz [mfeliz] (Center for Visual Culture)
and Carrie Robbins [cmrobbins] (Special Collections)
See books by Ellie Ga, acquired for Special Collections.
See artworks by Ellie Ga, acquired for Special Collections.
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