Ash Arder

The University Musical Society and the Arts + Culture Research Cluster at the University of Michigan-Flint are delighted to announce Ash Arder, Flint native and transdisciplinary artist, as the selected 2021-22 Flint-area artist in residence. Arder’s artistry and research interrogate viewers’ own proximity to and participation in social and climate justice issues. Through highlighting moments of tension where she finds ruptures in empathy between living entities and the objects and space surrounding them, she hopes to shed insight on the conditions causing these “relational glitches.” Her work exposes, deconstructs, manipulates, or reconfigures physical and conceptual systems while intimately examining the relationship between humans and more-than-humans through sound, sculpture, installation, literary and moving-image works.

Ash Arder will develop a new body of work incorporating sound and sculpture, which explores relationships between music, storytelling and place. As the artist in residence, Arder will engage with the UM-Flint campus and community for the duration of the 2021-2022 academic year, facilitating and leading on-campus workshops, artist talks, and community engagement activities while collaborating and mentoring emerging artists.