Free, virtual program
Using historical maps and contemporary artworks from The North Atlantic Triennial, this webinar will explore tensions between the concepts of the “real” and the “imagined” as it relates to landscapes and artistic practices of the North Atlantic and Arctic.
Joining us for this panel discussion is Dr. Libby Bischof, Executive Director of the Osher Map Library and Smith Center for Cartographic Education, and Jaime DeSimone, Robert and Elizabeth Nanovic Curator of Contemporary Art at the Portland Museum of Art and is moderated by North Atlantic Triennial artist, Justin Levesque of One Dynamic System.
This panel is co-presented by the Maine North Atlantic Institute at the University of Southern Maine and the Portland Museum of Art.
Libby Bischof is Executive Director of the Osher Map Library and Smith Center for Cartographic Education at the University of Southern Maine, as well as a Professor of History, where she specializes in the land we now call Maine and visual culture, especially photography. She has written a variety of articles and books related to Maine, including Maine Photography: A History, 1840-2015, with Susan Danly and Early Shettleworth, as well as Maine Moderns: Art in Seguinland, 1900-1940, the catalog for an exhibition she co-curated with Susan Danly at the PMA in 2011. At USM she teaches courses in the History of Maine, Maine Art, Photographing American History,19th century American History and Popular Culture, and Visualizing History. She also enjoys working with educators on teaching with maps, photographs, and active and experiential learning. She resides in Gorham with her family.
Jaime DeSimone is the Robert and Elizabeth Nanovic Curator of Contemporary Art at the Portland Museum of Art in Maine. DeSimone holds an MA degree in American Contemporary Art from American University (2005) and a BA in Art History from Bates College (2001). In 2019, DeSimone was awarded a Curatorial Research Fellowship from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts for the North Atlantic Triennial. She also serves a scholar in the Fulbright Arctic Initiative III, 2021–2022.
Justin Levesque is an interdisciplinary artist living and working in Portland, Maine. His work considers the materiality and tradition of photography in relationship to information exchange and mediated geographies. Levesque has exhibited nationally and internationally (the Center for Maine Contemporary Art; the Midwest Center for Photography; Terrault Contemporary; JanKossen Contemporary; Shape Arts, London; and The Factory, Gamla Síldarverksmiðjan, Djúpavík, Iceland). He’s received three Maine Arts Commission Artist Project grants and was named one of thirteen emerging photographers by Maine Media Workshops + College. He was a fellow of The Arctic Circle in Svalbard, and created independent artist residencies with Eimskip, Portland, ME / Iceland; Bigelow Laboratories for Ocean Sciences; the New England Ocean Cluster; and the Microsoft New England Research and Development Center.