aliciachester.com

Curriculum Vitae

Born: October 17, 1980

Lives and works in Chicago, IL

Research Interests: Photography history and theory, modernism and modernity, feminisms, critical theory, Walter Benjamin, Claire Demar, utopia and melancholy

EDUCATION

Master of Arts in Visual and Critical Studies - School of the Art Institute of Chicago, 2007-2010 (pending thesis)
Thesis: "Beholding Bodies and Embodied Beholders in Annette Messager's Mes vœux"

Certificate in Museum Studies - Northwestern University, 2004-2005

Bachelor of Fine Arts - School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Bachelor of Fine Arts Fellowship recipient, 1999-2003

Atelier Annette Messager - Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris, France, Spring 2002

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1998-1999

TEACHING

Adjunct Faculty, Graphic Design Department - Oakton Community College, Fall 2009 - Present
-Digital Photography: Course introduces potentials and realities of digital photography. Digital darkroom is constructed and necessary software explored. Content includes fundamentals of photography and their relation to digital imaging, basic electronic imaging principles, and scanning techniques.

Early College Program Photography Instructor - School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Fall 2008
Taught college-level courses to high school students, developed course content and syllabi, advised students on portfolios for college admission
-Beginning Photography (black and white darkroom): manual camera introduction, black and white film development, silver gelatin printing
-Photo II: Studio (digital acquisition and output): Photoshop, film scanning, inkjet printing
 
Teaching Assistant - School of the Art Institute of Chicago, 2007-2008
-Photography: Digital Imaging for Photo, Black and White
-Early College Program: Introduction to Photography, Digital Throughput, Photo Studio: Historical and Contemporary Practice
-Art History: Survey of Modern to Contemporary Art and Architecture
-First Year Program: Research Studio I

PUBLICATIONS

Co-founding Editor - canon, www.canonjournal.com, Spring 2008
-Multiform visual studies journal by SAIC Visual and Critical Studies first year graduate students
-Mission: canon addresses the field of visual culture with the goal of foregrounding hybrid artistic and critical practices, and seeks to feature people working outside conventional means of producing, disseminating, and engaging with images.

Art Criticism Staff Writer - F Newsmagazine, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, 2007-2008
Exhibition reviews: "Smart Adaptation." Mar. 2008: 7; "Mapping the visible and the unseen." Dec. 2007: 18; "Common Ground." Nov. 2007: 23; "Pedagogical Disorientation." Oct. 2007: 26; "Politica de la identidad." Sept. 2007: 7.

SYMPOSIA, CONFERENCES, and CURATORIAL

To Turn, To Tend Toward: Working Theses, MA Visual & Critical Studies Symposium, May 2, 2009
Working Thesis: "Toward a Haptic Understanding of Photography: Touch, Language, and the Body in Annette Messager's Mes voeux"

Radical Intersections: Performance Across Disciplines, April 24-26, 2009
Interdisciplinary graduate student conference, Department of Performance Studies, Northwestern University
"Performing the Absent Body: Looking to Be Touched", collaborative and performative lecture with Katherine Lennard (MAVCS 2009)

Disruptions: the Political in Art Now, October 24, 2008
Participant in symposium workshop on "the event" led by Gregg Bordowitz.
Hosted by the Open Practice Committee/Department of Visual Arts, University of Chicago and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago

A Hirsute Affair, Gallery X, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, October 14-31, 2008
Curator, organizer, and participant of group show concerning the myriad cultural, political, and gendered meanings and representations of hair

EXHIBITIONS

2009

ID Show, Koehnline Museum of Art, Oakton Community College, Des Plaines, IL

TOO BIG TO FAIL: Texts, Bodies, Objects, Images / APRIL Gallery, Twelve Galleries Project, Chicago, IL

2008
A Hirsute Affair, Gallery X, School of the Art Institute of Chicago (curator/organizer/participant)
Women in the Arts: A Celebration, Effe Leven Gallery, Chicago, IL
Discipline Problems, curated by Joseph Grigely, Alogon Gallery, Chicago, IL
Picturing Mary: Contemporary Images of the Madonna, Orleans Street Gallery, St. Charles, IL

2007
Flash Theory: On the Archive, Around the Coyote Fall Arts Festival, Chicago, IL
Solo exhibition, Cafe Ambrosia, Evanston, IL
Chicago Art Open, Iron Studios, Chicago, IL

2006
Curator's Choice Exhibition, curated by Tricia Van Eck, Around the Coyote Fall Arts Festival, Chicago, IL
Curator's Choice Exhibition, curated by Peter Miller, Around the Coyote Winter Arts Festival, Chicago, IL

2004
Beyondmedia's 1st Annual Art Auction ExtravaGOWNza, Las Manos Gallery, Chicago, IL
Figure | Body Selections, Hostelling International, Chicago, IL

2003
Bachelor of Fine Arts Thesis Exhibition, Gallery 2, School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Movieside 14, The Prodigal Son, Chicago, IL

2002
Movieside Film Festival, Biograph Theater, Chicago, IL
Les Portes Ouvertes, Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris, France

2000
20 First, 162 North State Street Residences Student Gallery, School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Artbash, Gallery 2, School of the Art Institute of Chicago

1999
A Surrealist Primer, Allcott Undergraduate Gallery, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
The Short Order Gallery Show, Chapel Hill, NC

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Review: Too Big to Fail/April Gallery." Beatrice Smigasiewicz. New City. April 2009.

Article: "On the road to Emmaus, at day's end..." Austin Fleming. A Concord Pastor Comments. April 8, 2008.

Review: "A modern take on Mary." Molly Collins. Daily Herald. March 28, 2008.

Interviewed by Brian Sarna. Columbia Chronicle. February 4, 2006.

Interviewed by Matthew McDermott. Chicago Living Arts. http://www.chicagolivingarts.org. February 4, 2006.

AWARDS

2008-2009    Student Leadership Award, School of the Art Institute of Chicago
2007-2009    Enrichment Scholarship, School of the Art Institute of Chicago
2008            Odyssey Travel Grant, School of the Art Institute of Chicago
2007            Community Arts Assistance Program (CAAP) Grant, City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs
2006            Community Arts Assistance Program (CAAP) Grant, City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs
2003            Bachelor of Fine Arts Fellowship, School of the Art Institute of Chicago
1999-2003    Academic Incentive Scholarship, School of the Art Institute of Chicago
1999-2002    Student Leadership Award, School of the Art Institute of Chicago
1998-1999    Dean's List, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
1998-1999    North Carolina Scholar

PRODUCTION and DESIGN

2008

Participant Photographer - Here (Now), artist's book by Danielle Sommer

2007

Documentation Photographer - Domestic Tension, installation/performance by Wafaa Bilal
Exhibited: FLATFILEgalleries, Chicago, May - June 2007

Designer - Cubed, Emmi CAFFE LATTE Cooler Art Mini Refrigerator
Designed fridge with photo collage for charity auction benefiting the Chicago Artists' Coalition

2006

Publicity Photographer - The Perks of Nudity, theater production by Dave Perez with EP Theatre
Photos and review published in November 10, 2006, print edition of the Chicago Reader

2005

Production Assistant - Midwest Olympia, video installation by Wafaa Bilal
Exhibited: Painting on Photography: Photography on Painting, Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, May - July 2005

2004

Production Assistant - Select works in The Human Condition, photo series by Wafaa Bilal
Exhibited: In the Shadow of the Surreal, FLATFILEgalleries, Chicago, April - May 2005

Lighting Designer - Mimetic Machines and the Difficulty of Producing Art Containing Meaning, digital film and animation by Daniel Torrente

2003

Lighting Designer and Assistant Director of Photography - 0 + 0 = 0, digital stop motion animation by Daniel Torrente
Honorable Mention, 2003 Adobe Design Achievement Awards

EMPLOYMENT

2009-2010        Specialist, Apple Store North Michigan Avenue

Spring 2009      Digital Imaging Technician, MacLean Visual Resources Center, Ryerson Library, Art Institute of Chicago

2007                Membership and Program Coordinator, Chicago Artists' Coalition

Summer 2006   French/English Translation Proofreader and Digital Archive Cataloger,

                      Multimedia Learning Center, Northwestern University

2004-2006       Program Assistant, Department of French and Italian, Northwestern University

Summer 2005   PicturePlan Specialist, Vis-Home

2003-2004       Sales Associate, Vosges Haut-Chocolat

Spring 2003     Darkroom Assistant Internship with photographer Alan Cohen

2000-2001       Resident Advisor, School of the Art Institute of Chicago

Other work experience: Freelance photography, food service, horse stable hand

Thesis

Beholding Bodies and Embodied Beholders in Annette Messager's Mes voeux

Through the figure and artwork of Annette Messager, concentrating on her series of photo-based installations from the late 1980s entitled Mes voeux, I want to explore the use and implications of photography and language in relation to the body, as well as the relationship of tactility to photography using the discourses of art history and theory, visual studies, feminism, cultural studies, and philosophy. In this respect the project is about creating a space of encounter for various discourses to collide in proximity to the photographic image  and in proximity to the embodied experience of the viewer of images and artworks. The viewer's body is the center of perception, and is thus the center of experience and the site of making meaning, in relation to an artwork. Starting from contemplation as an active rather than passive state of interaction with the artwork, I contend that artists such as Messager, creating complex and multilayered compositions centering on and pointing to the body, require viewers to engage the artwork with bodily response, whether pleasurable or abject. The site of encounter of the artwork and the viewer is mediated spatially, temporally, and through bodily sensation, whether directly (visually or sonically) or indirectly, as I will argue here, via tactility. Though the viewer may not be directly touching an artwork, the visual texture of work, in combination with images depicting close-ups of the body and intimately suggestive text as in the case of Messager's Mes voeux, solicits a tactile response from the viewer. In the case of Mes voeux - a sculptural wall installation constructed from photographs of body parts and deliberately exploiting the infinite reproducibility of photography and the tension between sculpture and two-dimensional representation - I want to take the indexical nature of photography beyond pointing to absent bodies to the constructed artwork operating as a proxy for the body, or rather, many bodies.

Below: "Translation," as exhibited in Too Big To Fail/APRIL Gallery, April 17 - May 10, 2009

Below: Photo sketch for "Translation: Myth"