Susannah Mira

Susannah Mira

Pueblo, Colorado

Susannah Mira completed her MA in Environmental Art at the University of Art & Design Helsinki in 2008. Born in San Francisco and raised in a non-descript Philadelphia suburb, she champions a highly itinerant artistic practice based out of an updated station wagon. Most recently she’s been on the Front Range as Artist in Residence at Colorado State University Pueblo for the 2010-2011 academic year.

Mira’s work alters and re-contextualizes common objects and environments. The resultant sculptural installations rely on recognizable forms in uncommon renderings, employing both available materials and humor to highlight different perspectives on themes like fabrication, resourcefulness, and development. By using ordinary materials, the work creates dialogues between mass production and the art object as well as global and domestic economies, offering an at times uneasy commentary on the human capacity to create – as well as endanger – our surroundings.

Susannah’s work can be viewed at: http://www.susannahmira.com/

Blue Sky Insight

I laughed more during Blue Sky than I have in years. While you could argue that everyone’s sense of humor is different, I think this detail speaks to the attentiveness and cheer of those associated with the program – artists, student artists, youth participants, and leadership alike; it also was one of my declared goals for the summer.

Our final project was not the one I initially proposed. In fact, what we ended up working on was aligned with the kinds of pieces I make in my independent studio practice, one that before Blue Sky I couldn’t envision opening up to a group. When I start to work I can’t always explain what I’m doing or why. The process begins with finding discarded industrial materials and form-making, expanding later to address conceptual concerns and site. I had thought an intuitive art-making model such as this one would be too hazy a proposition for high school kids during summer vacation. At times it was – but that ambiguity also produced a sense of mystery and awe around what would be the end result of our endeavors.

Despite having done numerous residencies prior to arriving in Dayton, none have presented me with terrain as unfamiliar as collaboration with teenagers. It turns out that the slow rewards of my working process, one that creates accumulative sculptural objects, was similarly alien to them. It was admittedly a challenge to impart the phenomenon of materials transformation to young people – literally still growing, to say nothing of the expectations of a generation habituated to the clip of digital media technology. And so I found myself thinking about the kinds of creative experiences I’d had when I was younger, recognizing quite clearly that circles of relationships were at the heart of those activities. As such, it was especially rewarding to see friendships develop within the group and across the program. I’m convinced that it’s the power of this camaraderie that lets individuals of different ages and experience levels generate something collectively that reflects, charms, and surprises us all.

Great Divide, 2010. This work utilizes 100 pounds of raw cotton — grown, sourced, and discarded near my former studio near the U.S.-Mexico border. Since the passage of NAFTA more than a million Mexican farmers have lost their land due to the market saturation of U.S. cotton and other crops, driving prices for these goods below the cost of production. In addition, cotton uses an enormous amount of pesticides in the production process, with by-products entering the human food supply through use in cattle feed and as a filler in processed foods.