website update! Dublin show and more…

I just updated my website to feature my new exhibition “Unsolicited Fabrications: Shareware Sculpture” at Pallas Contemporary Projects in Dublin, Ireland, and 126 artist-run space, Galway. Lots of photos of handmade sculptures (all built on-site over the period of seven days before the opening, mind you!). The trip to Ireland was amazing and I wish I had more time to explore and see the city!

UC Berkeley commencement speech

I had the insanely amazing honor to be invited to deliver the commencement speech for the Art Department at UC Berkeley this year. In attendance were over 100 graduating undergraduates and a graduate class of six students. Along with their proud families and faculty members, it took place on a sunny day in the sculpture garden of the Berkeley Art Museum. I took the responsibility very seriously — this was the first graduating class after last year’s historic presidential election, along with a recession that is coloring the outlook of college students everywhere. I wanted to address what I see as a potential opening of sorts, a way to encourage and promote cultural capital in a time of faltering economic capital.

Following is a transcript of the speech…

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“Cultural Capital in a Time of Recession”
by Stephanie Syjuco
Commencement Speech for UC Berkeley Art Department, May 2009

First of all, CONGRATULATIONS class of 2009! It is an honor and a privilege to be addressing you on this day, at this lovely museum, surrounded by your friends and families, your faculty and the UC Berkeley academic system. We have all come together to express our deepest pride in your commitment to your artistic practice and your pursuit of a degree of high value. Graduates, look around you and know that we stand by you to witness this day, and that we support you in your future. As an artist and teacher myself, I look forward to seeing you out in that place they call “the real world” as a creative peer within the greater art community. Again, my heartfelt congratulations to you all!

We are living in tough times and you must forgive me if I choose to structure this commencement speech for the art department in the language of economics. Indeed, it seems both appropriate and inappropriate – how to link together what goes on within an artist’s private space of production with the outside world of recession, politics, and restructuring. At times these spheres of existing seem vastly indifferent to each other. But I do think it’s possible, perhaps entertaining, and I’ll attempt to do so in a way that hopefully opens a dialogue about what your future challenges may entail.

I will not repeat to you the facts and figures of the current economic situation, this recession with a capital “R”. These things you probably already know, but if you find yourself blissfully unawares, you may be in for a bit of a shock after graduating and entering the job market. It is a daunting task to face a future in which economic prospects seem uncertain and the art market is contracting. Sales are down. Museums and galleries are cutting back expenses, art programs are laying off faculty and staff, while nonprofit arts organizations, that golden support system and lifeblood of young artists everywhere, are squeezing their resources to make ends meet. The international economic art party as it’s been known for the past decade or so is OVER and the reality is beginning to sink in. It was a grand speculation, a bubble, a fleeting moment that piggy-backed onto a larger wave of globalized flows of money. Not anymore.