Category — Faculty Employment

In addition to current MFA faculty and staff Amos Latteier, Rebecca Duclos, and Rachel Katz, the graduate program at MECA is thrilled to welcome two new professors, Andrea Ray and Peter Simensky, who will be teaching with us beginning this summer and fall, respectively.

Andrea Ray, Inhalatorium 2004

Professor Andrea Ray is a New York-based installation artist whose work primarily investigates the effects of ill-perceived relations and misdiagnosed conditions between subjects and their environments. Her projects often incorporate sound and architectural components and are supported through focused research across a number of fields and disciplines including psychoanalysis, Marxism, feminism, utopian studies, literary and aesthetic theory. Andrea received her BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1989 and her MFA from the Cranbrook Academy of Art in 1994. She attended the Whitney Museum of American Art Independent Study Program in 1996 and has taught widely and maintained an international studio practice ever since. Andrea brings with her a tremendous intensity and care in her interdisciplinary and intermedial teaching that has been honed at institutions such as the Kansas City Art Institute, Hunter College, Cooper Union, the College of New Jersey, Vermont College of Fine Arts, Parsons The New School, and the Malmö Art Academy in Sweden. Andrea will teach the summer Perspectives course, both Research Methdologies courses for 1st and 2nd year students in the fall, as well as the Interdisciplinary Studies and From Impetus to Analysis courses in the spring term. The MFA at MECA is thrilled to have Andrea join the faculty this June.

Peter Simensky, Neutral Capital 50 (Real Real Fictions) 2007

Professor Peter Simensky is a Maine-born, New York-based artist whose work spans numerous media including sculpture and installation, three-dimensional design, collage, video, photography, performance, print, and textiles. Peter received his BA at the University of California, Berkeley in Art History and Studio Art in 1999 and his MFA at Hunter College in 2003. In the same year Peter was a resident at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. Peter’s expansive network of artists and writers (developed in part through his position as a photo editor at Artforum from 2001 to 2003), as well as his extensive teaching experience at Hunter College, University of California San Diego, and New York University will be a significant asset to the program in the fall when he joins the MFA as a consultant to assist with the crucial pairing of MFA students and individual studio advisors in each student’s home community. In the fall term Peter will also be teaching the Companion to Contemporary Art Since 1945 course for 1st year students as well as the Guided Studies and Studio Thesis courses in the fall and spring terms, respectively, for graduating students. The MFA is excited to welcome Peter who will begin his work with us in mid-August.

Applications now closed. THANK YOU to BFA Faculty who submitted proposals!

GUEST LECTURERS FROM THE MECA BFA FACULTY WELCOME in summer 2009

The MFA will be teaching Perspectives as a new course this summer and we would like to invite BFA faculty to join us as paid guest lecturers in delivering course content.  Perspectives will be coordinated by an MFA faculty member who will act as a co-discussant with each Guest Lecturer during the weekly three-hour seminar course. The themes needing coverage during the summer are quite specific and are inspired by the work and writings of incoming Visiting Faculty who will be with the MFA students throughout the summer.

Below, you will find the course description and a list of suggested seminar topics that includes a link to the Visiting Faculty bios on this website. Thank you for submitting your ideas. If you have questions, get in touch with Rebecca Duclos at rduclos@meca.edu.

Jonah Freeman 1955, 2005. Digital C-print

COURSE DESCRIPTION

ST801/section II: Perspectives (2 credits)
Taught by core faculty & guest lecturers for both 1st + 2nd years

Location: On-site in MECA classroom

This seminar course is coordinated by MFA core faculty and favors a discussion-based  approach. The course instructor and guest lecturers hone in on those topics, themes, and issues that are specifically present in the work and writing of the seven visiting faculty who are in attendance at MECA throughout the summer. This course not only helps students to prepare for intense in-studio critiques, it provides the space to delve more deeply into key ideas and contexts that animate the practices of the MFA summer visiting faculty. Representing particular art historical, art critical, and aesthetic positions within the contemporary art world and employing a variety of media, techniques, and methodologies, the work of these guest practitioners becomes the focus of a series of in-depth class discussions and interviews throughout the summer.

Discussion topics might include research into the history and practice of collaborative processes, site specific interventions, social-interventionist practices, performance and performativity, radical or recuperative feminist practice, museological critique, public art, perceptual cognition, immersive installation, etc. Students will use part of this course to prepare for their interviews with visiting faculty. These interviews will be recorded for the MFA archives and used in subsequent course development.

Paul Butler's Reverse Pedagogy common room, Banff Centre 2008
(photo: Scott Rogers)

Dates and Topic Keywords for Seminar Proposals

Wednesday 24 June (Paul Butler visiting)
Seminar covered: Mark Clintberg, Concordia University

Wednesday 1 July (Amelia Jones visiting)
Topics: body art, performance theory, Feminist critiques, performative critical writing, recuperated (art) histories

Wednesday 8 July (Jane Wildgoose visiting)
Topics: artists as museologists, cabinets of curiosity, Victorian mourning traditions, human remains + cultural institutions

Wednesday 15 July (Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay visiting)
Topics: popular culture as autobiography, queer masculinity, appropriation + parody, the languages of love, signals +  semiotics

Wednesday 22 July (Ken Lum visiting)
Topics: Identity + image production, post-coloniality and assimilation, ethnic representation in public spaces

Wednesday 29 July (Jonah Freeman visiting)
Topics: crypto-museology, artists + fiction, immersive installation, archival interventions, phantasmagoria

Wednesday 5 August (Brian Dunn visiting)
Topics: hedonic preferences, mind-body connection, aesthetic pleasure and cognition, neurology + visuality

Cabinet detail from Wildgoose Memorial Library, London

Guide to submitting proposals

1. Please read the Faculty Bios since the Perspectives topics are keyed into the issues and ideas present in the work of each week’s visitor.

2. Select a week and a topic from the list above that you feel matches your interests and expertise and prepare a one page proposal that includes:

* a brief outline for 1 hour lecture (+90 minute group discussion)
* thoughts about how your own practice links to the topic at hand
* selection of references consulted
* indicate whether you will use visual or audio material

3. Deadline for proposals: Monday, May 18th (to rduclos@meca.edu)

4. Proposals will be reviewed by the Student Advisory Board and those guest lectures selected for further development and delivery will be notified the week of May 25th.

There is a $200 honorarium given for each guest lecture and lunch following class.

This employment offer is now closed. Thank you to all who submitted for this position. Shortlisted applicants will be notified by May 15th.

Please note: All applicants must be qualified to work in the USA

The Maine College of Art (MECA) in Portland ME seeks candidates for an adjunct professor to teach in its low-residency, interdisciplinary Master of Fine Arts in Studio Arts. The successful candidate will carry a 1.5 course load during the two-month summer intensive on-site at MECA and will teach 2 distance courses during each of the non-residence winter and spring semesters, respectively. Enrolment for the MFA is between 20 and 25 students; each core faculty member supervises 5-7 graduating students in the second year. Instructors are expected to maintain consistent communication with both students and MFA faculty/staff throughout all teaching periods within the academic year. In addition to the summer session, participation in two shorter intensives on-site in late December and early May is also required. During the academic year, instructors in the graduate program live in their home communities but are in residence at the College for nine weeks in the summer and ten days during both the winter and spring intensives. The MFA provides on-campus accommodation and additional compensation for instructors during each residence period.

Qualified candidates will be rigorously engaged studio or project-based practitioners with a strong understanding of curatorial practice, critical writing, and cross-disciplinary thought that is international in scope. Particular attention will be paid to those candidates who carry out active research within their own studio practice and have demonstrated their research capacities through exhibitions, publications, or special projects. A background in intermedial practices is preferred, as is the ability to teach courses in aesthetic research methodologies, contemporary visual culture, interdisciplinary practice, and critical writing within a studio-based arts program.

The successful candidate will be one of two core faculty in the MFA working within a larger program that includes the MFA Director, the MFA Program Coordinator, a series of summer Visiting Faculty, and individual studio mentors located across North America. The MFA also works closely with MECA’s Institute for Contemporary Art, the Curator of Porteous Exhibitions, and the MFA Archive and Moth Press. The adjunct professor position promises to be a dynamic one within a revamped curriculum focused on developing and re-defining the role that research can play in expanding and strengthening studio and project-based practices. There is scope for new course development and further refinement of on-line curriculum delivery. Course-planning duties will commence June 15^th with full instruction beginning on Friday, June 19^th, 2009.

Qualified candidates should send a letter of application, a curriculum vitae, images of current work, and sample syllabi for courses related to cross-disciplinary/intermedial practice or research methodologies. Demonstration of distance teaching will be an asset. Also included should be a selection of student evaluations, as well as exhibition catalogues, copies of research publications, and/or addresses of relevant web sites. Please provide names of three references.

Deadline for receipt of applications is:
Monday, May 4th 2009 (US applicants)
Friday, May 8th  2009 (international applicants)

Please send materials to:
Rebecca Duclos, Director
Maine College of Art
522 Congress Street
Portland, Maine 04101

For electronic submissions: employment@meca.edu

Only shortlisted applicants will be notified by May 15th

MECA is accredited by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges and the National Association of Schools of Art and Design, and is a member of the Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design. Maine College of Art does not discriminate on the basis of sex, sexual preference, handicap, race, age, color, national or ethnic origin in hiring and employment practices.