Panel: Motherhood, Making, & Mental Health

Join us for this important discussion with featured guests Scherezade Garcia-Vasquez, Christine Garvey, Lise Ragbir, and Sara Vanderbeek, moderated by Megan Hildebrandt. Inspired by Tala Madani’s work in the current exhibition, this panel of artists and arts practitioners will explore the often complicated relationships between Motherhood, Making, and Mental Health.

Space is limited. Please register in advance. (Walk-up tickets will be available only in the event of no-shows.)

About the Speakers:

Scherezade García is a painter, printmaker, and installation artist whose work often explores allegories of history, migration, collective and ancestral memory, and cultural colonization and politics. A co-founder of the Dominican York Proyecto GRÁFICA, she holds an AAS from Altos de Chavón School of Design, a BFA from Parsons School of Design | The New School, and an MFA from The City College of New York, CUNY. García has been featured in solo and duo exhibitions at the Art Museum of the Americas, Clifford Art Gallery at Colgate University, Miller Theater at Columbia University, Lehman College Art Gallery, Crossroads Gallery at the University of Notre Dame, Museo de Arte de Santo Domingo, and others. She has participated in the Havana Biennial, the International Biennial of Paintings at Haute de Cagnes, the IV Caribbean Biennial, Trienal Poli/Gráfica de San Juan, Latin American Biennial, BRIC Biennial, Venice Autonomous Biennial, and several international fairs. Her work is included in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Art Museum of the Americas, El Museo del Barrio, The Housatonic Museum of Art, El Museo de Arte Moderno in Santo Domingo, and others. García is the recipient of the Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters & Sculptors Grant (2015) and the Colene Brown Art Prize (2020). An edited monograph on her work Scherezade García: From This Side of the Atlantic was published in 2020 by the Art Museum of the Americas. She is a member of the Artist Advisory Council of Arts Connection and No Longer Empty. She sits on the Board of Directors of the College Art Association (2020-2024) and on the Board of Women & Their Work in Austin, TX. García is represented by Praxis Art Gallery, New York, and IBIS Contemporary Art Gallery, New Orleans. Her artist’s papers can be found at the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. Garcia is an assistant professor at The University of Texas at Austin. She currently lives in Brooklyn, NY, and Austin, TX.

Christine Garvey is an artist and coach based in Austin, TX. Her paintings and installations have been exhibited internationally, including exhibitions with Galerie Circulaire (Montreal), Sur La Montagne Galerie (Berlin), Jules Maidoff Gallery (Florence), International Print Center (New York), and The Contemporary Austin. Garvey’s work has been recognized with a Fulbright Research Grant (2016), a Fellowship from the Vermont Studio Center (2020), and an Artist Relief Grant from The Foundation for Contemporary Arts, United States Artists, and Creative Capital (2021). Garvey has taught at the University of Texas at Austin, School of The Art Institute of Chicago, and Pioneer Works Center for Art and Innovation. She writes and speaks about ideas that impact contemporary artists including scarcity, endurance, and financial stability. Her work has been featured in Creative Mornings Global, Brooklyn Magazine, and The Creative Independent.

Lise Ragbir is a writer and independent curator who has also worked with public and private art institutions as an administrator and grant-maker. Since moving to Austin, she was the first Collections Manager for the City’s collection of public art, and also served as the director of the Art Galleries at Black Studies at the University of Texas, where she organized exhibitions featuring the works of artists such Dawoud Bey, Genevieve Gaignard, Jacob Lawrence, Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons, and Deborah Roberts, among others. While at the University of Texas, she also co-edited, along with Dr. Cherise Smith, the publication Collecting Black Studies: The Art of Material Culture at the University of Texas at Austin, which was released in 2020. Her essays about race, identity, immigration and cultural representation have appeared in Hyperallergic, Frieze, Elle, The Boston Globe, The Guardian, Time Magazine, USA Today, and others. Her works of fiction have been featured in Catapult, Intellect in the UK, Pree Literature in Jamaica, and more. She was the Jack Jones Literary Art’s Tiphanie Yanique Fellow at the inaugural retreat for women writers of color, and has been an invited participant in Callaloo’s Creative Writing Workshop in Barbados. Lise holds a BFA in Art and Art History from Concordia University in Montreal and completed her graduate work in Museum Studies at Harvard University.

Sara Vanderbeek is an interdisciplinary artist, curator, consultant, cultural producer, and community organizer. In her visual art practice she creates concept-driven series focused on community arts-based activations and social practice. Her work contextualizes autobiographical experiences and responds to culture, politics, mental illness, and trauma. She has engaged in projects at venues nationally, including The Contemporary Austin (Austin, TX); McNay Art Museum (San Antonio, TX); Deitch Projects (New York, NY); and the 2013 Texas Biennial at Blue Star Contemporary (San Antonio, TX). In 2020, Vanderbeek and her partner Eric Manche collaborated on a mural for the Facebook lobby as part of their Open Arts residency program. The couple also co-founded DORF, a 501c3 non-profit organization and experimental gallery that provides space for artists, community organizing, and advocacy, where Vanderbeek serves as Executive Director and Curator. She was a founding board member of ICOSA Gallery in East Austin where she served as president and treasurer. She is the recipient of numerous awards including “Best New Experimental Art Space” by the Austin Chronicle and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Cultural Arts Division of the City of Austin. Most recently, she was a finalist for the 2022 Artpace International Artist-In-Residence Program and is a 2021-22 Interchange Grant Fellow, a program of the Mid-America Arts Alliance. Vanderbeek’s projects have been covered by Texas Monthly, the Austin Chronicle, Glasstire, Sightlines, Southwest Contemporary, Arts and Culture Texas, ArtDaily, and more. She received her BFA from Rhode Island School of Design and has over 20 years of professional experience and training in the post-war, contemporary, and emerging art markets including holding positions at Christie’s Auction House (New York, NY), Pace Prints (New York, NY) and McNay Art Museum (San Antonio, TX).

Megan Hildebrandt received her BFA from the Stamps School of Art & Design in 2006, and her MFA in Studio Art from the University of South Florida in 2012. Hildebrandt has exhibited nationally and internationally at The Painting Center, New American Paintings, The Baltimore Museum of Art, The Museum of Contemporary Craft, Arlington Arts Center, Detroit Contemporary, HEREarts Center, Latitude 53, Johns Hopkins Medical Center, the LIVESTRONG Foundation, Hyde Park Art Center, The Torpedo Factory, and Collar Works. In 2018, Hildebrandt received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts for the Aesthetics of Health course she developed for Interlochen Arts Academy. In 2022 Hildebrandt co-authored an article about adapting the Aesthetics of Health curriculum effectively for higher education during the COVID pandemic in the American Medical Association Journal of Ethics. This course is now taught each spring at the University of Texas at Austin. An artist, educator, and arts-in-health advocate, Hildebrandt currently lives and works in Austin, Texas, where she is Associate Professor of Practice in the Department of Art and Art History at The University of Texas.