Reception will immediate follow the lecture.

The University of Oregon Department of Art is pleased to present a lecture and exhibition by Sarah Nance (MFA ’13), made possible by the Laverne Krause Lectures and Exhibitions endowment.  

"For evaporated seas combines several bodies of work made in response to what I call 'archived landscapes.' These are sites that have exhibited multiple distinct geologic identities over time, such as a subsurface meteor crater or mountain range that was once a sea reef. I collect geologic and experiential data from these sites and use it to guide my material interactions with things like mylar film, knitting patterns, and opera. 

I think of the works I make in response to these environments as shrouds that vary from handworked textiles to vocal performances. When installed on site, the shrouds become additional surface layers that contribute to the complex geologic strata of their terrains. They also point to the entwined human and geologic histories of these places, and mourn the products of those entanglements."

- Sarah Nance, 2025

Sarah Nance (MFA, '13) is an interdisciplinary artist based in installation and fiber. She explores entanglements of geologic processes and human experience in archived, constructed, and speculative terrains. Her time spent living in the geologies of Oregon, Iceland, eastern Canada, and the Driftless Area of the Midwest has been significant in the development of her research, much of which continues to be based in these regions. Nance is currently Assistant Professor of Integrated Practice in the Harpur College of Arts and Sciences at SUNY-Binghamton in New York. She has previously held professorships in Interdisciplinary Art at SMU (Dallas, TX), Fibres & Material Practices at Concordia University (Montréal, QC), and Fiber at Virginia Commonwealth University (Richmond, VA). Her work has been performed and exhibited widely at venues in China, France, Canada, Iceland, South Korea, Germany, and Italy, as well as across the U.S.