& Then

Experience Boston through your nose!

Kate McLean (Graphic Design 2004), Sensory Cartographer, invites you to join her on a smell walk of Boston as a part of her latest smell research project.

The walk will start at 7pm on Wednesday, August 7th at Haymarket and covers a distance of just over 2 miles finishing at Charles Street/Boston Common.

“The aim of this particular walk is the exploration of a series of one-dimensional maps of a smell journey through a city based on distance and time. I will be assessing how many smells we encounter on a single journey. I am interested to find out how each person perceives and describes the smells and their association with particular smells and aromas.

At key points I will stop and talk about smell expectations, how certain companies use fragrance for marketing, country-specific smells, and we will try to deconstruct some complex smells that have interested me for some time.”

Please email mcleankate@mac.com for further details or to sign up.

Suffolk University Gallery at the School of Art & Design has a new gallery director! Deborah Davidson is an independent curator, educator and artist active in the Boston cultural scene.

Deborah received her M.F.A. from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts/Tufts University and her B.A. from Binghamton University.  She is part of the core faculty in the MFA program in Visual Arts at the Art Institute of Boston/Lesley University. She maintains her studio practice in tandem with her curatorial and educational roles. Deborah was the featured artist in the 2005 issue of Agni, the BU literary magazine, her first published writing appeared there. Her work is in many private and public collections, including Yale University, Wellesley College, Boston Public Library, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and the Houghton Library, Harvard University.  Her most recent project Catalyst Conversations is an organization devoted to the idea of art and science in dialogue, launched in October 2012.  Deborah’s other independent curatorial projects include Exploding/Exploiting The Book, AIB/Lesley University, What is Contained: The Book As Subject And Object, Northeastern University, and Cannot Be Described In Words: Drawing Expanded, Concord Art Association.  These all had rich programs supporting the exhibitions – ranging from films, to symposia, to special student events. She has had solo exhibitions at the Danforth Museum of Art, Kingston Gallery, and NKG Gallery.  In 2011 she was an Artist in Residence at Northeastern University, as well as a recipient of a Berkshire Taconic A.R.T. grant. Deborah looks forward to contributing to the School of Art & Design and Suffolk University to create exciting exhibitions and programs.

In the coming months, Deborah will join & Then as a guest blogger writing about local exhibits and other exciting arts news. Please join me in extending a hearty welcome to Deborah.

Graphic Design professor, Jen Fuchel, participated in “A Glimpse Beyond” last weekend at the Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge. Her installation, “Settings,” plays with contextual expectations, shifting indoor objects outside. Through a collection of hanging frames, attention is called to works of nature, placing the natural world in a position often occupied by man-made art. With this work she seeks to challenge our perception of the nature of art and the art of nature.