Written by Alexis Schramel | Pictures by Eric Butler A BIG congratulations to Joy Li! This past semester Joy Li '23 curated Soft Power highlighting the relationship between experimentation in textiles and concepts surrounding strength. Fifteen university faculty members were chosen across Minnesota, Iowa, and Wisconsin. Recently I was lucky enough to interview her regarding her curatorial work, below is a transcript of our conversation. Can you introduce yourself and your art practice? As a painting, sculpture, and installation artist, I am committed to providing the viewer with a utopia free from complex emotions and negative feelings. Creating art is a process of healing myself. I am currently an MFA student of Minneapolis college of art and design who is working as the graduate assistant at MCAD gallery and curated an exhibition called “ Soft Power” recently. Where did your inspiration to curate Soft Power come from? I am very interested in the use of various materials. The main content of this exhibition revolves around fibers and patchwork and based on this, I focus on factors such as the matching of materials, the choice of colors and the use of space to select the works. In addition to this, I browsed through the artists' statements to find works that matched the power of softness. How did you make selections for the exhibition? This process of selecting the work was actually really difficult. I hesitated for a long time because there were so many great artists and amazing works. I chose works mainly on the theme of soft power. Factors such as the material and color palette between the works and the size of the gallery space all needed to be taken into consideration. Do you have any advice for future curators? I don't know if I have a lot of good advice for future curators since I curated an exhibition for the first time. But I have learned a lot through this experience. The great artists are concentrated in a community. So it is essential to integrate yourself into this community. Curating an exhibition not only needs to look at each piece of the artwork but also the meaning behind each piece, and how it fits into the theme of the exhibition. It is also important to make connections between the works. Thank you Joy for spending time to chat with me! Thank you to all the exhibiting artists! Below is more information on their work. Allison Baker, Hamline University Isabel Barbuzza, University of Iowa Jamie Bertsch, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Rachel Breen, Anoka Ramsey Community College Shan Bryan-Hanson, St. Norbert College Melissa Dorn, Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design Alondra Garza ’21, MFA, Augsburg University and MCAD Alison Gates, University of Wisconsin, Green Bay Tracy Krumm, Maine College of Art and Metro State University Rachel Merrill, Grand View University Liz Miller, Mankato State University Teresa Paschke '85, Iowa State University Erica Spitzer Rasmussen, Metro State University Eun-Kyung Suh, University of Minnesota Duluth Laura Wennstrom, Anoka Ramsey Community College and Bethel University Categories Student Activities Student Profile