Lisa Orr: From St. Stephen's to Asuncion

Potters are rarely invited to participate in international biennial exhibitions. However, St. Stephen’s ceramics instructor Lisa Orr recently was selected to show her ceramic artwork in the inaugural Bienal de Asuncion in Paraguay during the first week of October. Her appearance was funded by a grant from the Fulbright Scholar Program. This was Orr's third time to be awarded a Fulbright grant to exhibit work abroad. Her previous adventures included exhibitions in Bulgaria and Macedonia.

 

“It was a great project in so many ways,” Orr said. “The work of 125 international artists was displayed in venues across the city. In addition to traditional exhibit spaces, such as museums, studios and art galleries, our work was displayed in parks, empty train stations and restaurants, as well as on buses and walls as graffiti. This means that all city inhabitants, regardless of their social or economic status, had access to and were able to experience this collection of contemporary artwork from around the world.”

 

There was also a significant educational component to the month-long exhibition. Many of the artists reached out to children in schools and to residents across the city with whom they worked collaboratively on special projects to create art works. The Paraguayan, American and Cuban curators certainly fulfilled their vision behind the motto “Artwork everywhere, all the time” in this remote capital city.

photo by Chris Caselli '81