Embodied Cartography in Territorial Disputes with Susan Harbage Page
Embodied Cartography in Territorial Disputes with Susan Harbage Page
Wednesday, November 8th, at 7 pm EDT on Zoom
Join us for a dynamic and exploratory conversation with Susan Harbage Page as she shares more than 15 years of meditations and explorations on the U.S.-Mexican border. As a socially engaged citizen Susan Harbage Page uses a variety of media including photography, performative interventions, sculpture, video, works on paper, and more. Here, her very embodied practice questions how race, nationality, socioeconomics, gender, sexual orientation, and other aspects of our identities impact our bodies and our ability to access place, have our basic needs and rights met, and experience a sense of belonging, safety, and freedom.
In preparation for this conversation, view the exhibition catalog here.
Susan Harbage Page has spent her life crossing borders, both literally and figuratively. Born in Ohio, she moved to North Carolina and thus experienced both sides of the Mason-Dixon line at an early age. In 1969, when Harbage Page was 10 years old, her mother took her and her three sisters on a three-month European camping trip in a red VW bus. The five women crossed 23 borders, including the Iron Curtain countries of Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Yugoslavia, and Bulgaria. At Romania’s border, agents detained the family for a day. Being trapped between two borders and belonging to neither influenced Harbage Page’s work, which explores militarized spaces, borderlands, nation, gender, race, archives, representation, and belonging.
Harbage Page holds a master’s degree in photography from the San Francisco Art Institute, a master’s degree in music from Michigan State University, and a certificate of knowledge of the Italian Language. Her master’s degree in saxophone performance from Michigan State University and engagement with the New Music Ensemble at MSU, where she studied the work of John Cage and his theories on chance, indeterminacy, silence, and Buddhism, influence her performative works.
Her work has been widely exhibited internationally, including in the UK, Italy, France, China, Israel, Germany, Bulgaria, and Slovenia, and can be found in the collections of the Baltimore Museum of Art; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Israel Museum, Jerusalem; Nasher Museum of Art, Duke University, Durham, NC; Mint Museum, Charlotte, NC; High Museum of Art, Atlanta; and others. Among Harbage Page’s honors and awards are fellowships from the North Carolina Arts Council, the Camargo Founda-tion, Berenice Abbott International Competition for Women in Documentary Photography, Academic Excellence Award from the Institute for Arts and Humanities UNC-Chapel Hill, the Carolina Women’s Center Faculty Scholar Award UNC-Chapel Hill, a residency at the McColl Center, and funding from the Andy Warhol Foundation and the Fulbright Program. Seven books about her work have been published in conjunction with solo exhibitions. Harbage Page is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Women’s and Gender Studies at UNC-Chapel Hill, where she teaches a curriculum that combines hands-on artmaking with feminist thought and social justice activism. She lives and works in Chapel Hill and Spello, Italy.
Susan Harbage Page
Susan Harbage Page
Susan Harbage Page
Susan Harbage Page
