VALS Visiting Artist Lecture Series with Mev Luna

Join us for an exciting evening as we welcome Mev Luna to the VALS Visiting Artist Lecture Series at Dock 72 in the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

Hosted by our Fine Arts MFA program, VALS is one of several free and open-to-the-public events we offer each year. Follow us on Instagram @prattfineart to see what’s coming up, and we look forward to welcoming you soon!

Mev Luna is a research-based artist and educator whose practice spans performance, film, 3-D animation, sculptural installation, and writing. Through an autoethnographic methodology, their work reappraises history to identify fictions governing contemporary life and considers issues of institutional access, incarceration, and how images of marginalized groups are circulated and controlled. They use obfuscation and disclosure in tandem to navigate audiences through complex narratives and draw upon multiple registers—sight, sound, and emotion—to convey meaning in conjunction with historical context. Their practice embraces relational citations, incorporating the voices of family and community members alongside theorists and scholars.

Luna’s time-based works have premiered at SFMOMA and Artists’ Television Access, San Francisco; the Gene Siskel Film Center, Chicago; and Kino Moviemento in Berlin. Their work has been featured in group exhibitions at El Museo del Barrio, Sergeant’s Daughters, Andrew Rafacz Gallery, SOMArts, among others. Luna’s practice has been supported by grants and fellowships from the Art Matters Foundation, New York Council on the Arts, Mellon Initiative for Inclusive Faculty Excellence at The New School, Queer | Art NYC, and by residencies at MASS MoCA, the Wexner Center for the Arts, Triangle Arts Association, Chicago Artists Coalition, Cobertizo (México), SOMA Summer Program, and Shandaken: Storm King.

Luna is a repeat visiting critic in the MFA Painting Department at Yale School of Art and currently Assistant Professor of Contemporary Art Practice and Theory at Parsons School of Design, The New School, where they teach on artistic research, moving image, performance, and carcerality.

Previous VALS artists include: Diana Al-Hadid, Korakrit Arunanondchai, Izzy Barber, Judith Bernstein, Michael Berryhill, Wafaa Bilal, The Black School, Flaviu Cacoveanu, Pradeep Dalal, Abigail D. Deville, Nicole Eisenman, Florencia Escudero, Rochelle Feinstein, Keltie Ferris, LaToya Ruby Frazier, Scherezade García, Rico Gatson, Jeffrey Gibson, Mark Thomas Gibson, Nancy Grossman, Trenton Doyle Hancock, Edgar Heap of Birds, James Hyde, Laura Kalman, Lotus Kang, Nina Katchadourian, Elektra KB, eri king, Baseera Khan, Savannah Knoop, Leigh Ledare, Jennie Jieun Lee, Ann Lewis, Tau Lewis, Kalup Linzey, Ibrahim Mahama, Park McArthur, Alicia Mersy, Wardell Milan, Ayanah Moor, Lavar Munroe, Narcissister, Rashaad Newsome, Catherine Opie, Amanda Phingbodhipakkiya, Zoë Pulley, Alexis Rockman, Aura Satz, Shazia Sikander, Lorna Simpson, Nyugen E. Smith, Wendy Red Star, Brigitta Váradi, Dan Walsh, Yu-Wen Wu, Hu Xiangqian, and Frank Wang Yefen.

We are grateful to the Robert Lehman Foundation for supporting this series.